Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

C4-621's earliest memory was choking on his own blood.

It was both a stark memory and a clouded one. The emotions had been visceral, enough so that he still felt their sharp edges in his dreams, where he'd wake up sobbing and gasping, hands clutching at his throat, palms damp with sweat rather than blood, his fear-fogged mind unable to tell the difference for the first few seconds. The dream visited him often, and he knew it had been a listed defect on his auction profile.

But that memory made it hard to conceptualise what Walter meant when he said become human again, or whenever Rusty asked him do you know what you'll do after all this? C4-621's earliest memory had been when he was Asset 04, choking to death in his AC's cockpit when a catastrophic Core rupture had sent shrapnel flying. Who he had been before that - whatever memories he had possessed as the Person-Before-Asset 04 - had been swallowed up amongst the black smoke and encroaching dark. His heartbeat had been so loud, he remembered, louder than the shrieking alarms of his cockpit. He thought he'd die to it.

But he hadn't - but he did. Asset 04 had been salvaged and repaired, and he had woken up in the infirmary with his body immobilised and his neck in a brace, hooked up to too many machines. He hadn't been able to recall anything except what he had assumed were his last moments, and his sluggish thoughts had been further disorientated by his previous handler standing over his hospital bed arguing with the doctor.

The doctor had done as his previous handler had asked: he fixed his throat enough that Asset 04 could swallow soft foods at the very least, and didn't need a machine to breathe. His destroyed memories had been thought an inconvenience at worst and a non-issue at best, and was considered solved by pairing him with Asset 06 to 'mentor' him. Asset 06 had known Asset 04 pre-injury, but it hadn't been a good thing. Asset 06 had constantly complained about how Asset 04 wasn't himself anymore.

Who was himself? C4-621 still didn't know the answer to that, long after Asset 06 had an unfortunate accident on a mission where Asset 04 was the only survivor. A catastrophic failure of a mission, Command had said solemnly, and they had cut their losses: Asset 04 was stripped of his designation, what scant remnants of his past he still had, and shoved onto the black market to recoup some sort of profit by selling his body.

The litany of defects had spoiled his auction profile, though, and Asset 04's price had reduced lower and lower, prospective buyers deterred by the heavily redacted history and the damning unpredictable, brain damage, mute, throat trauma tags pinned to him. Asset 04 became #96762482-C, his auction number, and he got very familiar with the storage chamber as time dragged on.

How long did it drag on? He couldn't remember. He had been shoved in and out of stasis often, brought out before interested parties before being inevitably shoved back in. The gaping void in his memories yawned wider, and soon #96762482-C began to forget parts of being post-injury Asset 04. The older the memories, the easier they crumbled into sand, trickling out of his skull and into the uncaring aether. The lack of a structured timeframe didn't help either.

But one day he was eventually pulled out of storage and wasn't immediately shoved back in. He had been introduced to his current handler, Walter, and remembered sitting in his tall shadow, his eyes fixed into the middle distance as a cold hand grabbed his jaw and lifted his head up to expose the throat. He remembered having to fight the urge to quake at the contact, unused to physical touch after so long.

Walter had looked unhappy, but he'd followed through with the purchase anyways. From that day on #96762482-C became C4-621, a designation that belonged to someone else but whose boots were loose enough for him to step into without anyone questioning it. Walter even had their identity chip, whoever they had been, and had installed it under his skin on his left bicep. Some days he'd press his fingers there, feel the solid square lump, and couldn't help but wonder where Asset 04's had been.

Walter brought him to Rubicon, and C4-621 assumed an even newer name, again robbed off a corpse: Raven. The various identities were piling up on him, but everyone used Raven so consistently that it was increasingly difficult to remember the days of Asset 04 or #96762482-C. But that memory, the very earliest one he had, of sticky blood under his hands and the too-loud heartbeat and the burn in his lungs from a gaping throat… it hadn't dulled in the slightest.

C4-621 only really remembered it in his dreams, and the few seconds after waking, where he was shaking hard enough that he felt like he was having a fit, damp with sweat and Ayre whispering 'it's a memory, raven, it's a memory'. He'd always tuck it back into the dark, putrid box it came leaping out of every night and never think about it in the waking hours. He couldn't. He didn't want Walter to regret his decision to buy him.

But he couldn't help but think about it now.

Air cold enough to burn snagged in his throat, making him choke on every other breath, his chest stuttering from the strain and looming panic. A blinking red light in the bottom right corner of his HUD - energy critically low - as his generator gradually began to run out of fuel, and white, nothing but white could be seen through his ocular feeds, blinded by the howling blizzard battering his AC. Rubicon's Central Icefields were harsh and merciless for the prepared, but for him…

Ayre's voice was tense, but she had been tense ever since everything had blown up in their faces down in Institute City. They had to flee from the Coral Convergence, Arquebus hot on his heels, and he had barely managed to escape intact from that deathtrap. Handler Walter had gone completely silent on the comms during his escape, and all C4-621 received when attempting to reach out since then was an ominous UNABLE TO CONNECT.

Without guidance, without really knowing where to go, as the nearest port of call was Arquebus-owned, C4-621 had blindly struck out into the icy wilderness at full speed until his boosters had cut out from overheating. That was when the blizzard hit, bringing with it an interference so powerful STALKER's navigational systems couldn't even tell which way was north. C4-621 became hopelessly lost within minutes, in an AC whose power levels were dwindling to truly dangerous levels.

How long had he been wandering? He didn't really know. Maybe a day, at most. But it had been long enough for him to slowly cut off more and more of STALKER's systems - first jettisoning the shoulder mounted missile launchers, then tossing aside the handgun, followed by deactivating the FCS. The only weapon he refused to relinquish had been his laser dagger, with arguments that it only used energy when activated, and he wanted something with a bit of bite to it. But now…

The cold was starting to creep in. As he limped through the snow that was deep enough to come up to STALKER's ankles, he could feel the joints start to jar and stiffen up, freezing over from the relentless ice. If he cut the power to even more systems and just focused purely on heating the Core, he could stretch out his lifespan by another handful of hours at most.

But he couldn't help but think at that moment: what was the point?

What was the point, really, truly? He thought there had been one before Institute City. The first embers of hope had dared to ignite in him after his experiences on this planet - Walter's gruff kindness, Rusty's friendliness, even the rivalry of the Redguns and Ayre's guidance. He had thought, finally, finally, he can rebuild himself. He can become Raven. He can become some sort of person. He can live. He can live, finally, after dying for so long in that cockpit, choking to death. He thought, when Watchpoint Alpha had been found, that he was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. He felt so hopeful. So stupidly, naively hopeful.

Hope. He forgot what a cruel tease it was.

Slowly, STALKER came to a halt, standing stoically amongst the howling blizzard. C4-621 had no idea where he was. He'd probably been walking in circles for all he knew, and when the blizzard cleared would be standing mere miles from Watchpoint Alpha. Even if he did find a safe place, who could he… even go to? If Walter was no longer an option… Carla? But he had no idea how to reach her from the Central Ice Fields, and she always contacted him. Not even Ayre could track her down through the network.

So he asked: ayre, what do i do?

C4-621 didn't move. He stared out into the white void, considering his very limited options. He could cut all power to STALKER's limbs and extend his life by hours before the cold inevitably killed him, or he could just continue to wander around and freeze to death within the next thirty minutes. If he was truly desperate, he could reach out to Arquebus and request a rescue, surrendering himself to their re-education.

If this were the beginning days of Rubicon, he would've selected that option without blinking. He knew nothing else back then but harsh demands and harsher hands. Re-education would've just sounded like his usual normal. Now, however…

He'd rather freeze to death, honestly.

Maybe he should just get it over with? C4-621 wasn't really keen to die - he distinctly had a very powerful survival instinct - but if it was inevitable, as in, coming whether he liked it or not in an hour or four, he may as well just stop beating around the bush and get it over and done with. His palms sweated and his heart raced, animalistic fear gripping him, but he was steeling himself.

It wasn't even a bad way to die. He heard it was actually quite a pleasant way to go. He wouldn't even be aware of it happening. Nothing like choking to death on his own blood, with all the undignified agony that came with it. No, it was fine. Nothing to be afraid of. Just take a big lungful of air and brace yourself. You can do it. Better than- better than the alternative.

Ayre hesitated, and he could sense her severe disquiet at the turn of his thoughts.

But what other option did he have, that wasn't walking back to square one? He didn't want to die either, but the more he thought of being processed back into something like Asset 04 made him feel physically ill. He didn't want it. He really, really didn't want it.

A quiet ping drew C4-621's attention to his HUD. The blizzard was starting to thin slightly - not enough to lower its threat to his continued existence, but enough that he could see more than an arm's length ahead of him. Cutting through the snow, bright lights flashed and winked, followed by dark shapes...

STALKER's joints audibly shrieked as C4-621 leapt into action, the shot of adrenaline warming him more than any central heating could - but it was too late. The dark shapes beelined for him, and an open comm assaulted his HUD even as STALKER began to desperately, albeit sluggishly, gallop in the opposite direction.

"Raven! Surrender immediately and you won't be harmed!"

"Don't bother, look at his AC. It's on its last legs. Just chase him down!"

Warning beeps trilled through his cockpit and plasma bolts hissed and spat at STALKER's heels. They were aiming for his legs, cautiously, as the blizzard obscured vision and messed with FCS, but C4-621 knew it would only take one lucky shot. He didn't have enough power to activate his boosters to even lose himself amongst the snow. The LCs, not limited by such things, were easily gaining - and their aim sharpening in response.

A plasma shot speared through STALKER's left knee joint, severing it completely. The feedback that lanced through him was enough to make him gasp in pain, the AC toppling over onto all fours. A cloud of snow was thrown up from the impact, but C4-621 didn't stop. He tried crawling, awkwardly, the reverse-jointed legs not built for such movement but-

"Got him!"

A heavy weight impacted the back of his AC, flattening STALKER and causing his HUD to light up an angry crimson. C4-621 made a strangled noise of fear and rage, hearing the ominous creaking of his Core straining under the weight directly pressing down on it. One of the LCs had jumped right on top of him.

"I can't believe we caught him… shit, look how beat up his AC is. How the hell did he escape Institute City in that?"

"Stop gawking and call back to Command already! This guy is squirming like a hooked worm."

Of course he was, C4-621 wasn't going to let that be the end of it. He bucked and thrashed as much as he could in his restrained position, but the LC's weight was immovable, and STALKER had never been built for strength. Lacking a leg, he couldn't leverage the LC off his back, and ejection was impossible because the LC was on his back, obstructing the ejection hatch. C4-621 was well and truly caught.

"V.II Snail, we've caught up to Raven…. Yes, sir, about seventy miles north from Watchpoint Alpha, near outpost #09. We'll need a dropship for recovery…"

C4-621 slowly stopped struggling, pessimistic acceptance trickling in. It was over, then. He'll be stripped of this name too, and given a new one, forced to become yet another Asset, losing everything he's ever managed to claw for himself on Rubicon. For a moment- for a moment he felt something so viscerally hot burning his lungs he thought he'd pant out pure flame, a rasping, shrill noise leaving him in lieu of anything coherent cursing. He slammed a clenched fist into the snow beneath his AC.

Damn his luck… damn his life-!

The incoming projectile warning chirped the split second before a hypervelocity round snapped through the air. C4-621 lifted his head in time to see it spear through the LC calling Command right through the cockpit, killing the pilot instantly.

"W-What- who the he-" 

BEEPBEEP. 

"ARGH!"

Another round, C4-621 just seeing the thin ripple of its trajectory before the heavy weight toppled off his back. He scrambled, trying and failing to get to his feet, and staying in a protective huddle instead when his one remaining leg couldn't support his weight. His head swung wildly from side to side, trying to lock onto his supposed rescuer before remembering he had deactivated his FCS. He was effectively blind.

"...you know, I didn't expect us to meet again so soon."

The familiar voice filled C4-621 with both relief and intense dread.

Melting out of the snowy haze like a spectre, an unknown AC gently landed in front of them, their boosters barely stirring the snow. C4-621 didn't recognise any of their frame parts, or their shoulder mount, and he could only stare dumbly while his rescuer peered down at him, green ocular feeds aglow as they scanned his AC's battered and broken body. On the unknown AC's shoulder, a grey wolf snarled down at him.

"I wanted it to be when you'd found your resolve, but… I couldn't turn a blind eye to this. You're lucky the Liberation Front caught wind of Arquebus's search parties. It gave me time to track you down."

C4-621's fingers were numb, but he still managed to type, clumsily: «rusty?»

"...yeah. It's me, buddy."

Never before had C4-621 felt such a conflicting rush of emotion. He still didn't know how he felt about their last meeting, how the shock of Rusty turning his weapons on him had almost cost him the battle before his survival instinct had kicked in. He still didn't understand why it had happened, couldn't follow the thread of Rusty's logic during the battle, and that uncertainty filled him with anxiety now.

He was helpless. The only viable weapon he had was his laser dagger, and STALKER only had enough stored power to get maybe two swings out of it before he had emergency life-support power only. If Rusty wanted to continue that fight, if he wanted to finish what he had started and what C4-621 had failed to end, then… then that was that. As much as it knotted up his stomach, C4-621 decided that that would be okay. He'd prefer it'd be Rusty, out of them all.

So, he typed, as Ayre remained quiet and watchful: «make it quick.»

Rusty's AC twitched slightly in an abortive movement.

"...what?"

«make it quick. please.»

There was a very long pause where Rusty said and did nothing. His AC seemed to scrutinise him harder, and slowly, the shoulder mounts that were primed into combat readiness deactivated, retracting against his back. The gun he'd been holding in his right hand lowered to point directly at the floor - nonthreatening.

"I'm not here to kill you, buddy."

Slowly, Rusty crouched down.

"I'm here to capture you, before Arquebus does."

C4-621 let his hand drop from his keypad, filled with an empty sort of resignation. Capture by the RLF was a step-up from Arquebus and their 're-education camps' to be sure, but at the same time… captured. He understood it, from a cold, logical standpoint. If the RLF couldn't sway him to be a permanent member, then it'd still take him off the board entirely, right? Better than letting him become a mindless drone for Arquebus.

"I'm sorry about this, buddy, I really am. But if you cooperate, everything will be just fine, I promise."

Liar, C4-621 couldn't help but think bitterly. He had believed in Rusty, even though a part of him had known that one day they may have to fight over conflicting mission objectives. But he had assumed it to be a 'no hard feelings' matter over Balam hiring him to blow up something owned by Arquebus not- not… whatever had happened down near Institute City. That Rusty had never given him an adequate explanation for - or an explanation at all! Even when Flatwell had interfered, Rusty had persisted!

For a moment he felt so blisteringly angry-

But C4-621 had learned early how to suppress his emotions. Even though his time on Rubicon had loosened his steel grip over them, he didn't allow himself to give into the childish, impulsive urge to lash out when Rusty carefully grasped STALKER's arm and began to drag him through the snow. Arquebus were likely on their way here, so it made sense to relocate while awaiting proper transportation for STALKER.

C4-621 didn't actually do much of anything, really. He didn't communicate anything to Rusty - who seemingly took his cold silence in stride - and disconnected entirely from STALKER so his AC became nothing but complete deadweight. The restraints binding him to his seat automatically loosened when it detected the disconnect, and C4-621 carefully, calmly, methodically, unbound the restraints and gently unplugged the cerebellum spike.

Pain rolled through him, his head pounding as it always did after the removing the spike. He curled up in his seat, knees to chest with his arms wrapped around them, as his breaths visibly left him. Cold enough to burn his throat, cold enough that it caught in his windpipe, reminded him of that chest spasming fear of slowly suffocating to death...

C4-621 minutely shook his head, and Ayre quietened. For the first time, he felt like they weren't on the same wavelength, that she misunderstood his anxiety and dismay for something else entirely. He wasn't afraid of what the Liberation Front would do to him - they were going to try and recruit him, obviously, and they understood that honey caught more than vinegar in this respect. C4-621 wasn't afraid of them.

He was just…

…

…it didn't matter. His life was once more at the mercy of another person, bound to the whims of an organisation he had no real allegiance to but had to serve in body and soul regardless. Handler Walter was probably gone, captured if Snail was to be believed, and Carla was only ever an ally of convenience. C4-621 couldn't survive on his own, not even as a stray dog.

It was time to adjust again. It was time to get to know his new masters, know what tricks they liked, and temper his dreams for freedom that flew more and more out of reach. Walter had let him have such a long leash at times… would the RLF be the same? He supposed he'll find out one way or another.

After all, what choice did he have?

Chapter Text

To the north of Watchpoint Alpha and on the very fringes of Rubicon's arctic circle, the craggy ruins of a military garrison jutted out of the ice like a long forgotten mausoleum. Permafrost clung to the concrete remains of half-collapsed barracks, and snowdrifts that rivalled the height of most ACs all but buried the rest of the buildings. Beyond the garrison though, on what had once been an active military airfield, hardened aircraft shelters dotted the landscape, their sloped roofs appearing as snowy hills from an eagle-eyed view - empty of all life and derelict.

Which was exactly why Flatwell had chosen this location as the Liberation Front's main base on this side of Rubicon.

A lifetime ago he had once served in Rubicon's militia, back when extraplanetary colonies were given some semblance of self-governance, and been posted to this exact garrison. An AC pilot of some skill, he had been bitter about the posting, thinking it a waste of his talents to prowl the icy fields, chasing off independent mercenaries purchased by rival corporations to sabotage each other's Coral refineries.

Then the Fires of Ibis happened.

Rubicon's civilisation collapsed and the PCA moved in to blockade the planet, indifferent to the plight of the Rubiconians and consigning them to a slow death of starvation and abandonment. Suddenly, out of the way garrisons like this one were a lifeline for the dying Rubiconians, and Flatwell, rudely reacquainted with the truth of humanity's frailty and insignificance in this cold, dark galaxy, found himself somehow in charge of a small ragtag group of equally lost pilots and civilians, frantically trying to build themselves sustainable shelter in the ruins of this garrison. A lot of mistakes had been made, a lot of trial and error, but eventually…

Eventually, fifty years on, this garrison became one of the few beating hearts of the Liberation Front.

The surface was uninhabitable - temperatures never wavering much from -50°C meant that they would waste too much valuable power trying to keep these ancient buildings warm - so the majority of the Liberation Front resided underground, the entrances to these old bunkers joined with tunnels situated within the hardened aircraft shelters.

The base was jokingly called the 'Snow Warrens', but there was a note of pride in the name too. The Snow Warrens was evidence that the Rubiconians could overcome any hardship, could thrive where most thought existence was impossible… and Flatwell was the proudest of them all, even if he had dreams for something a little bigger.

But baby steps. The fate of Rubicon was still tenuous, considering recent news. Flatwell only lived this long by fixing his gaze on manageable goals.

"The dropship's arriving now, Uncle."

Flatwell turned from the planning table displaying a holographic map of the Central Ice Fields, peppered with crimson and blue dots: Balam and Arquebus outposts respectively. The blue far out-numbered the crimson, these days.

"Should we bring a squad to… ensure Raven behaves?" Juniper, a young Rubiconian that was on aide duty that week, asked. He was a mousy young man, but eager to prove himself. Flatwell appreciated his enthusiasm, but thought he was a little overly keen at times - like now.

"There'll be no need for that." Flatwell had a feeling Raven was going to be more tightly wound than a Coral-engorged mealworm, and stressing him out with a squad of armed Liberation Front soldiers wasn't going to help anything. "Tell Rokumonsen to meet me at… which hanger are they taking him to?"

"Hangar two, Uncle."

"Hangar two. Tell him to bring the cuffs for guests, as well."

"Yes, Uncle."

Juniper scurried off, and Flatwell turned off the holographic map. Thus far, Raven was the only one who had eyes on the interior of Institute City, as Rusty's cover had been… well, the less said about that mess, the better. His main objective had been achieved, and in just over a month the first LCs and HCs will be developed for RLF use. Then they can take the battle to Arquebus, before they dug themselves in too deep like a disease-ridden tick.

He unhooked his winter coat from the coat rack situated next to the bunker door, and pulled it on. While the underground base was considerably warmer than the surface, it still lingered at a frigid 2°C in the connecting tunnels, with most of their power focused on heating the administrative and residential areas. He zipped up the thick coat, tugged up the hood, and pulled open the heavy metal door.

The blast of cold air made his old bones ache, but Flatwell ignored it as he stepped through the opening and made his way to hangar two - the AC hangar, which they had only a few of nowadays, after the Corps and the PCA had rampaged across the planet, thrashing each other without care for the native Rubiconians. Despite his best efforts to let the two factions tear each other apart and conserve his own forces, too many of their bases and people had been killed in the crosshairs. Resources and manpower was becoming strained in certain sectors.

Additionally, Father Dolmayan and Ring Freddie had vanished recently too, but in Flatwell's mind that was more of a relief than a hindrance. Father Dolmayan hadn't been the same since… well, and Ring Freddie had been an enabler of Dolmayan's more inconvenient acts. Pragmatically, they were better as legends and martyrs, rather than getting underfoot of Flatwell's own plans, but he knew he had to put up a front of being concerned over their absence. After so many weeks of hearing nothing, though, he felt confident in diverting precious resources from the search to more important matters.

He desired nothing more than a free Rubicon, of course, but he was a realist. Blind faith only carried you so far.

As he walked through the winding tunnels - lit up by dingy overhead lights salvaged from old mines - passing Liberation members greeted him with respectful nods and murmurs of 'Uncle' - but there was an air of anticipation about them. No doubt news of Raven's capture had travelled through the ranks, and they were all convincing themselves that this absurd yet incredibly talented mercenary would be fighting for them permanently from now on. The Liberation Front's chances would skyrocket with Raven on their side.

Flatwell was… well, optimistic, but he wasn't blind to Raven's circumstances.

He reached the elevator for hanger two, and stepped inside, pushing his hands deep into his coat pockets as the machinery groaned and creaked while taking him to the surface. The temperature dropped a little, but not by much, and as the doors scraped open, a cacophony of noise met him.

Hangar two was loud, chaotic and constantly stinking of oil and lubricants. While he was sure the garages of the corporations were far sleeker and well-maintained, even on this blasted husk of a planet, the Liberation Front had gotten very experienced at managing with jury-rigged equipment. Smoke and steam made the interior perpetually hazy, but Flatwell didn't let himself dawdle - he made his way to the rear of the hangar where most of the activity was centralised.

STEEL HAZE ORTUS was secured into its moorings, AC mechanics already hard at work in ensuring the quick stint out into the ice fields hadn't damaged their newest and most advanced AC thus far. Beside it, another AC was being very carefully secured, clearly having seen better days.

The left leg was missing from below the knee, wires and half-melted pistons jutting out from the amputated limb. There were no weapons to be dismantled - except for what seemed to be a laser dagger attached to the left arm - and the dark paint was heavily scratched and pitted with plasma and laser burns. Steam wisped from its body, and as Flatwell drew closer, he could see that the AC was almost entirely iced over, some mechanics trying to chip away at the thick chunks that were jamming up the joints and access points to the more delicate insides.

Flatwell didn't linger to gawk, though. He made his slow up the stairs that led to the pilot catwalk. Rokumonsen was already waiting for him when he got to the top.

An unassuming man, Flatwell had to admit that Rokumonsen was one of the strangest men he had met. He wasn't officially part of the Liberation Front, though he was practically a member in all but name, but his occupation as an independent mercenary came in use whenever they needed an intermediary for suppliers that would rather not deal with the Liberation Front openly or directly. While some thought this made Rokumonsen a little untrustworthy, Flatwell trusted him enough to keep him close in his inner circle.

Ziyi was what tied him to them, and Ziyi was loyal to him, so it all worked out in his opinion.

"Flatwell," Rokumonsen greeted, bending at the waist to offer him a shallow bow. He seemed out of place with his strange garments - like a ninja from a film - and combined with his rather plain face he looked like an office worker that had gotten lost on his way to a costume party. That wasn't getting into his habit of randomly breaking out into dramatic haikus or making odd gestures that only he understood the meaning to.

But, Rokumonsen's eccentricities were harmless. Who was Flatwell to judge?

"Rokumonsen, thank you for coming," Flatwell said, nodding his head towards the battered AC at the end of the catwalk. "Ready to greet our new guest?"

"Indeed. I've come carrying the bindings you've requested, but are you certain that we can trust this man?" Rokumonsen's tone was solemn. "True, his blade has felled many of our foes, but he has also cut down many of our allies too."

"Was it not the same for you when Ziyi saved you from starvation?" Flatwell asked mildly, beginning to walk down the catwalk. "I recall you accepting a job or two to disrupt one of our logistical routes before then."

Rokumonsen uttered a quiet, awkward noise, but made no further protest.

They reached the end of the catwalk, where two mechanics were hard at work chipping away at the AC's cockpit access. Ice had frozen over the pistons that controlled the access's door, though it seemed it was almost safely removed.

"This AC had both feet in the grave, Uncle," one of the mechanics, Hare, said when he spotted Flatwell. "Almost frozen solid… hope Raven's okay in there."

"Yeah, I haven't heard a peep," the other mechanic, Gregor, said uneasily. "You don't think he's…"

"Only one way to find out," Flatwell said. "Is there enough power for the door to open? Or will you have to force it open?"

"No, it's still got emergency power, just about. Hold on, the ice is almost gone…"

"Uncle!"

Flatwell turned at the familiar voice, and sighed when he saw Rusty trotting over. It never failed to amaze him how Rusty had barely aged since leaving Rubicon almost ten years ago, the augmentations he had received having slowed his ageing to a near crawl. He was fairly tall for a Rubiconian, just shy of 6ft, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist all emphasised by the short, collar-furred jacket he had tossed over his flightsuit - an extra layer of insulation this far north. He still needed to cut that hair of his, though. That dark, wavy mop was starting to flop into his eyes.

"Rusty," Flatwell said. "Did you rush through your desynchronisation?"

"The headache's not that bad. Besides, skipping the last two stages doesn't do any lasting damage," Rusty said, unrepentant beneath Flatwell's disapproving stare. "Haven't we cracked Raven out of his steel coffin yet?"

"His 'steel coffin' was frozen almost entirely shut," Flatwell said. "You were lucky. Had you been even thirty minutes or so late we would've been recovering a corpse."

"If he's not dead already," Hare muttered - and jumped when Flatwell looked at him sharply. "Uh, I mean, opening the cockpit now."

Steam hissed out as Hare activated the emergency access, the hatch that led into the cockpit screeching open and dislodging some ice that hadn't quite fully been chipped off. Flatwell gestured, and the mechanics hastily backed off. He didn't want Raven to feel crowded or threatened.

Rokumonsen stood at his shoulder, his expression grim, and Rusty shifted his weight impatiently somewhere behind him. Honestly, Flatwell had been hoping Rusty would still be desynchronising for this meeting, if only to remove any complications.

"Raven," he called, after the access hatch opened but no one emerged. "This is Middle Flatwell, of the Liberation Front. Exit your AC calmly with your hands in view, and I promise you'll be treated humanely."

There was a prolonged pause, one long enough where Flatwell began to genuinely wonder if he had frozen to death, when there was a noise of movement. Despite himself, Flatwell felt himself lean forwards slightly, Rokumonsen and Rusty doing the same, because the thing was:

No one knew what Raven looked like.

A leg appeared first, a slim one, carefully joined by a second as Raven eased himself out of the hatch. When he straightened up, Flatwell actually did a double-take when he got a look at his face. He had been expecting a grizzled veteran, or something similar, but Raven looked…

He looked like a young man, doe-eyed and deceptively gentle looking, his hair short, dark and curly, framing his face in a way that made him seem almost angelic. Yet once you overcome that initial glance, certain details leapt out that gave him an uncanny air - the bright, crimson glint in his brown eyes, the scars slashed over his throat with one trailing up over his jaw to vanish somewhere into his hairline, and the way he just… stared at nothing. Flatwell recognised that stare: it was the look of a shattered man.

The problem with augmentations, especially the older ones, was how you could never truly gauge a person's age by looks alone. Raven could honestly be pushing fifty and they wouldn't know, so Flatwell tried not to let his youthful looks throw him. He looked down at him (because he was also surprisingly small, barely hitting 5'2"), and clasped his hands behind his back, trying to catch Raven's eye.

Which was difficult. Raven was stubbornly staring to the left, his blank gaze unwavering.

"Thank you for cooperating," Flatwell said after a pause. "Now, I want to assure you that you're here as a guest… but an untrusted one. However, there's no point having our discussion when you've only recently escaped an arduous ordeal, so…"

He indicated, and Rokumonsen stepped past him, holding up the cuffs. They were wide, made to encase the forearms with the interior padded. They were actually quite comfortable, and was Flatwell's attempt at an olive branch despite the fact that he was technically taking Raven prisoner.

(A quick glance to the side almost had Flatwell rolling his eyes. Rusty was staring at Raven with a gobsmacked look about him, clearly having also expected a grizzled veteran to come slithering out of the cockpit, not this… fey-like creature.)

"I ask that you let us take you to a secure room where you may rest. Food and water will be given to you, and if you wish to have a shower, I can arrange something, though please be aware you'd be supervised."

Raven made no indication he had heard him. He just kept staring at nothing.

"...Rokumonsen, if you would."

"Hold out your hands," Rokumonsen ordered, his voice gruff but not aggressive. Flatwell watched keenly, but Raven immediately obeyed. He held out his hands and let himself be cuffed without fuss or complaint.

Flatwell should be pleased at the easy cooperation, but there was an edge of uneasiness about how passive Raven was about his situation. Considering he had willingly charged into a blizzard, clearly choosing death by hypothermia over captivity, this docility was rather strange. He had expected some sort of resistance or defiance. A dirty look at least, or some sullenness. The fact he was getting nothing made him both suspicious and concerned... but fourth generations were notorious for being emotionally withdrawn. It was likely nothing.

"Ah, I think… uh, Uncle," Rusty began, overcoming his shock even as he stumbled over his words slightly. "I remember him saying before, he's got dietary restrictions…"

That garnered a reaction from Raven. His gaze snapped over to Rusty - before abruptly dropping just as fast before he made accidental eye contact. His blank expression hadn't shifted, but there was a sudden tension in his frame that hadn't been there before.

Hm.

"Really? What are they?"

"Soft foods only, I think."

"Is that true, Raven?" Flatwell asked. "If so, it's an easy accommodation to make. I don't promise it'll taste good, though."

Jerkily, Raven nodded. He was now staring at the floor with such intensity it was as if he was trying to melt a hole through the catwalk with his gaze alone. Flatwell eyed him for a moment, watching how Raven's fingers curled inwards, until his hands were just shy of clenching.

Hm.

"Alright, I'll make the arrangements. For now, let's get you to your room. Rok-"

"I can, Uncle," Rusty offered, predictably.

Flatwell levelled a look at him, trying to telepathically convey to him that Rusty escorting Raven anywhere alone right now was the worst possible thing he could do. "I'm sure Rokumonsen is more than up to the task, Rusty."

"So am I," Rusty said stubbornly, his posture deceptively relaxed despite his confrontational tone. Flatwell felt a headache coming on. "We can take this time to catch up."

Flatwell's look narrowed into a glare.

Rusty smiled back winningly.

Coral, save him from pigheaded youths.

"...fine. Rokumonsen, come with me. I have another task for you. Rusty… just take him to the guest room, and only do that."

Once Rusty closed his jaws around something, he wouldn't let it go. It was easier to simply relent and try to mitigate the fallout. In any case, Flatwell didn't think it'd be too disastrous. Even if Raven got upset with Rusty, Flatwell would ignore it so long as no blood was drawn. Rusty had a bad habit of overlooking the consequences of his actions, sometimes, so this would be a good lesson for him.

He still tried not to feel apprehensive when he turned on his heel and walked away, Rokumonsen following him a moment later. As if he needed interpersonal drama to interfere with his recruitment of Raven…

"Glad to see you're alright, buddy."

Raven didn't acknowledge him, his gaze still glued onto the catwalk at his feet. Rusty had expected the cold shoulder, though. They hadn't parted exactly on good terms last time, and no doubt Raven was smarting at being captured after working so hard to evade it but… he just needed some time to cool off, he was sure. An independent merc like him wouldn't take these things personally.

Well, he hoped, anyway. Raven was a bit of an incomprehensible enigma, sometimes.

"Anyway, c'mon. I know the cuffs might be giving the impression I'm taking you to a cell, but it's an actual guest room. A nice warm bed'll be waiting for you, I promise."

Again, no acknowledgement, but Raven followed when Rusty moved away a few steps. The two mechanics that had been working on the cockpit's access hatch sidled past the two to try and salvage what they could of STALKER, looking faintly awkward.

"We'll try to patch up your AC too," Rusty said, if only to fill in the uncomfortable silence between them. The cacophony of the hangar wasn't enough to cover it. "You're lucky you run with Schneider parts. We've got plenty of spare parts on hand, and might even have a leg we can repurpose for STALKER. I'm sure Uncle won't mind lending it to you in exchange for some work."

No acknowledgement.

...this wasn't a cold shoulder, this was a frigid wall. Rusty tried not to let it get to him, leading Raven down the catwalk stairs to ground level. When they reached the hangar floor, passing technicians and mechanics overtly rubbernecked at the shackled man walking in Rusty's shadow, though they skedaddled quickly when Rusty gave them a sharp look.

They reached the elevator that would take them down to the warren's tunnels, and Rusty tried to make conversation again.

"Listen… I know you're probably angry. I get it. Our fight got pretty heated, and we didn't get a chance to talk before I came swooping in to 'capture' you," Rusty said, putting emphasis on the word 'capture'. Obviously, it was a rescue that was somewhat like a capture, but Rusty was confident that it would work out. At the very least, Uncle had no reason to do anything to hurt Raven so long as he remained compliant.

"But I promise, everything's gonna be fine, buddy." The elevator groaned and shuddered when it reached the bottom. "Arquebus won't be able to reach you here."

Raven just let out a soft sighing noise, and his expression shifted fractionally into something weary. Rusty paused, but Raven didn't do anything more than that, so he led them off the elevator and into the dimly lit tunnels, heading towards the residential block for hangar two.

But as they walked, he noticed that Raven was shivering minutely. His flightsuit wasn't the standard-type most Rubiconians wore, which was made to withstand the arctic temperatures the planet reached on most days. It was a little thinner, but clearly padded with kevlar around the vital areas. Useful for preventing fragmentation injuries from a Core rupture, but not very well-insulating.

Rusty didn't even have to think about it. He unzipped his jacket and draped it over Raven's shoulders, politely ignoring the way Raven flinched from the sudden contact like a kicked dog.

"Sorry, I forgot how cold it is down here. You can borrow that for now," Rusty said easily, acting casual about the whole thing in hopes it'd make Raven relax from his sudden ramrod-straight tension. "I've got a second one in my quarters."

Raven lifted his hands briefly, seemed to remember that they were cuffed, then awkwardly pulled the jacket tighter around himself. Rusty didn't offer to help. That flinch had told him all he needed to know about how Raven would appreciate contact - that is to say, not at all.

But it also got Rusty his first acknowledgement. Slowly, like Raven had to clearly think about the motions, he signed: thank you.

"No problem, buddy. Wouldn't be a good look to let you freeze to death within the first ten minutes of being in custody, would it?"

Raven just huffed, his breath leaving him as a visible puff of white, and glanced at him. His brown eyes caught the dim light above, and they flashed as twin, glittering discs of Coral-red for a split second before they lowered, hidden behind Raven's thick eyelashes.

He had heard the rumours, but it was another thing entirely to see it for himself: the Coral eyes. Dosers didn't ingest enough of the substance for it to show, and those like Flatwell didn't have enough Coral in their augments, but those like Raven? It made his eyes seem unearthly. They didn't just appear crimson under the right light; they practically glowed, glittering like there were multitudes of Coral stars tucked away in those irises.

As beautiful as it looked though, Rusty knew it wasn't exactly a good thing. Those who had Coral-heavy augmentations tended to suffer from terrible side-effects, up to and including Coral-burn on the brain. O'Keeffe had told him about it once: the voices, the hallucinations, the sensation of wrongness that pervaded your every waking moment, like your body was a prison that your soul was screaming to escape. O'Keeffe's later augmentations had purged the excess Coral and helped him with those symptoms, but Rusty knew some nights were bad for him.

Was it the same for Raven?

There was a lot he didn't know about him, and what he did learn just mystified him at times. Raven was a ball of contradictions: ruthless but merciful, pragmatic but inconveniently kind… it was hard to tell which way he'd fall on each given day, and even his decisions over which job to take didn't seem driven by COAM, as he was known to refuse lucrative jobs to take a lower paying ones instead, with little rhyme and reason to it.

Thinking about it… Walter had given a surprising amount of freedom to his hound.

Walter.

Rusty's thoughts became grim as he thought about that potential snarl. Intercepted communications indicated that Walter had been successfully captured by Arquebus - timed in conjunction with Raven's ambush. Likely Snail had wanted to catch them both at the same time to minimise chances of one or the other deciding to go on a rescue mission, but Raven had thrown a spanner in those works. Had managed to fight free and rampage his way through Watchpoint Alpha like a man possessed, if the intercepted comms were anything to go by.

Raven might request a rescue attempt for Walter, but Rusty doubted Snail would keep him somewhere conveniently within reach, now that Raven had slipped from his clutches. If Walter wasn't already at a re-education camp, then he was definitely in the Factory by now getting lobotomised. A horrible fate, but one that Rusty had accepted as inevitable for him. He could only hope Walter died during the procedures like so many others before him. It was the kinder option.

He had no idea how Raven would react to that piece of information, though, and now probably wasn't the right time to tell him. Glancing over at him, Rusty could tell Raven was beyond exhausted. It had been almost an entire day since he had fled Institute City and had spent that continuously on the run. He doubted he had slept, ate or drank anything in that time.

No, best to keep a lid on it for now.

"...here we are."

Rusty spoke up after a lengthy silence, stopping in front of an unobtrusive door. They were in the residential block of hangar two, and all of the rooms had been dug out of the bedrock over the course of literal decades. They were simple, but warm (well, 'warm' relative to the arctic temperatures outside) and clean and, more importantly, had an actual bed with blankets and everything.

"The door'll be locked." He tapped the code for the door, unlocking it. Raven watched keenly. "From the outside," he added. "There'll be an intercom on the inside though, so you can call someone to requ-"

He stopped abruptly, realising a problem with that immediately.

"Ah, right, you… can't talk," Rusty said awkwardly. Raven just turned his head to the left, his expression unchanging and his eyes heavy-lidded. "Well, just accessing the intercom will alert the person at the other end that you need assistance, so… it'll work out."

He ushered Raven inside, and the merc stepped inside cautiously, his head turning this way and that as he inspected the room. It had a bed in one corner, with two pillows and one thick duvet to combat the pervading chill of the warrens, and two books on the bedside table. In the other corner was a small cubicle that contained a toilet, and outside the cubicle was a sink with a mirror.

A bit sparse, but definitely luxurious compared to whatever dank hole Arquebus would've shoved Raven into.

"Here, let me undo those for you."

Raven obediently held out his hands, and Rusty inputted the code to open them. Gently prising the cuffs from his wrists, he watched as Raven immediately took two steps backwards and flexed his fingers, as if he was fighting the urge to rub his wrists.

"Buddy…" Rusty started, but looking at Raven, found himself abruptly lost for words. He had always envisioned Raven to be larger than life, an indomitable force of nature like how he was in the cockpit of his AC, but in reality Raven seemed so… brittle. Not only that, but it felt like there was an insurmountable gulf between them that hadn't been there before. Raven had always been eager to speak to him, in whatever limited ways he could, and turned to him for answers over the oddest of things. Rusty had admittedly liked it, that Raven had felt comfortable enough to look to him for guidance on some things, even though he was such a brilliant pilot. He wasn't sure if they had been friends as such, but they had definitely been war buddies. They had trusted their backs to each other in combat, and now...

Now Raven wouldn't even look at him.

"...I'll see about those rations," he finished in a quiet mutter. "Try to get some rest while you can."

He stepped through the open door to Raven's room (cell), and paused to look over his shoulder. Raven hadn't moved. He just stood there, his gaze locked onto the wall but not really seeing it, practically drowning in Rusty's jacket. The bright light overhead emphasised the stark bruising under his eyes, and the scars across his throat - from an injury that looked like it should've been fatal. Fragile, Rusty couldn't help but think, but in an untouchable kind of way. His expression was so far away it was as if he wasn't even on Rubicon anymore.

After a too long pause, where Rusty stared at Raven who studiously ignored his very existence, he closed and locked the door, sealing him in.

Chapter Text

While Thumper was used to every Liberation Front soldier double - or even triple - hatting due to lack of manpower, this was the first time she was told to do something as menial and unusual as food delivery to a VIP: specifically, their 'very important prisoner', except Uncle had emphasised that really, Raven was a guest, not a prisoner, they were just confining him to a room for a bit until they figured out how to convince him to bat for the RLF long-term. Which, in Thumper's opinion, kind of sounded like he was a prisoner, but she was just a lowly combat medic who moonlighted as a storeman, so what did she know?

The inventory for their soft foods, that's what. Uncle had all but scruffed her when he had swept into their ramshackle infirmary, and thus she had been given her highly unusual job of catering to their VIP by choosing what foods would be suitable for him and delivering it to him to see if he was fine with it.

Her medical skills lay more in the realms of shoving someone's guts back into their stomach after a failed ejection rather than doing a covert health assessment of an old gen augmented human, but you didn't really say no to Uncle when he gave you a job.

(Unless you were Rusty, but that guy was seemingly made of Teflon when it came to defying Uncle. And speaking of that nuisance, he sure got underfoot for a bit after tracking her down in the storeroom. She had to practically chase him out with a broom and ignore his woebegone kicked puppy face when she shut the door on him. Troublemaker. Uncle needed to smack his nose with a newspaper more. Anyways.)

So here she was, walking down towards the 'Guest Room' (cell) with a hastily taped up ration box tucked under her arm. Inside she could hear the various soft food pouches she had managed to scrounge up (that were still in date - just about), rattle around in there, and hoped Raven wasn't a picky eater, since these were likely to be the last bit of 'good' food he'd have for a long while.

Balam had the best ration packs around, since they actually understood the maxim of 'a well fed soldier was a happy soldier', whereas Arquebus fed their grunts what tasted like cardboard and likely was cardboard, with how many cost-cutting measures they went through. But after Balam got a harsh kicking in Watchpoint Alpha, their presence had been pushed to the very southern fringes of the ice fields, which meant the Liberation Front couldn't strike their logistic hubs very well, which meant they were forced to steal Arquebus rations to feed themselves. A terrible fate for all.

Raven was getting gifted the very last components of a Balam ration pack… the lucky bastard.

She reached the guest room, and did a perfunctory knock before calling: "Raven? I'm bringing ya yer rations. Name's Thumper. Please don't attack me or nothin', cuz I can tell ya Uncle'll be cross with ya."

No reply, but the guy was mute (or so she'd been told) so she wasn't expecting one. She inputted the code to unlock the door, her ears pricked for any suspicious sounds. While some usually thought her a pushover, being just over 5ft and narrow-shouldered, her callsign was Thumper for a reason. She had toppled and flipped guys twice her size for being difficult patients, had dragged soldiers that weighed almost three times her weight from live battlefields, and lugged around heavy boxes in their storeroom almost every day.

She wasn't expecting Raven to, like, go apeshit or anything, but she was confident she could put him in timeout if he got it into his head to do a jailbreak at thinking she was some waify girl who couldn't stand up to some bigshot augmented human.

"I'm comin' in!" she warned before prompting the door open. She stepped inside and- paused.

Her first thought was 'that fucking bastard's done a runner', seeing nothing but an empty room. But then her eyes fell on the bed and saw it was missing its duvet and pillows, and lowered her gaze further to see the corner of a duvet sticking out from under the bed - a corner that was quickly yanked fully underneath, out of sight.

She was mystified. Was he really…?

…well, AC pilots were a strange breed, and the older gens even stranger (practically aliens). Closing the door behind her, she hefted the ration box and walked over to the bed.

"Uhhh, sorry if I'm interruptin' summin', but I've got yer food here."

No response.

"Okay," she said, and knelt down. She set the box on the floor, opening it up and carefully lining up the food pouches: they were all silver, with blocky, impersonal black lettering denoting its contents. One pouch was simply: green vegetables and tuna, and another was 'english breakfast'. There was one that also claimed to be 'strawberry cheesecake', but in her opinion whoever made that pouch had clearly never interacted with a strawberry in their life, but it was edible enough.

Her offerings laid out, along with a few cartons of juice (one apple and the other blackcurrant), she stared at the bed. It was quite low to the ground, but had just enough space for a particularly small and skinny guy (which Raven apparently was) to squirm under. Bracing herself, she shifted to lean down to peer under the bed-

-and saw twin discs of Coral-red eyes stare right into her very soul.

"Fuckin' hell," she said, despite expecting the sight. Those eyes were freaky. "The fuck're ya doin' under there?"

Those eerie eyes just blinked very slowly at her.

Thumper thought she had seen it all with weird AC pilots - she interacted with Rokumonsen on a regular basis - but Raven was really outpacing him in terms of 'I don't think this man is from Earth, or any human colony actually'.

"...well, I've got ya food. D'ya want me to… I dunno, hand it to you under there?"

Raven stared wordlessly at her.

Were it not for the fact that they had actual evidence he could comprehend human speech spoken to him, Thumper would've thought he was deaf along with mute. After a pause, she decided that since asking him questions wasn't prompting engagement, she'd give him orders instead.

"Okay, well, I'm not handin' it to ya. C'mon, get out from under there, ya weirdo. Ya shouldn't eat when lyin' down anyways, it's unhealthy."

That finally garnered a reaction. Slowly, Raven obediently shuffled out from underneath the bed, where it looked as if he had made some sort of nest out of his duvet and pillows. Once he was out from under the bed, he had the duvet wrapped around him completely, his eyes looking more reddish brown than Coral-red now that he was under some proper lighting.

Thumper pursed her lips. He… really had dangerous amounts of Coral in his body, thinking about it.

But that wasn't her wheelhouse, and Raven wasn't seizing on the floor talking in tongues, so she left it as a mental observation for now. She picked up the first food pouch - the 'veggies and tuna' one - and held it out to him.

"Here, try this one. It's a Balam-approved ration pouch, so ya know it's good stuff. Should be soft enough for ya, but lemme know if ya struggle with it."

Raven stared at the pouch in her hand with no expression whatsoever, but after a pause he slowly reached out and accepted it. He moved so carefully, she couldn't help but notice, like he had to think about it, or was worried about moving too fast and startling her. It was odd, but she was realising that she was likely going to think that about almost everything Raven did in this meeting.

Fortunately, she didn't have to prompt him to actually eat the food. He cracked it open and wrapped his lips around the opening. He didn't seem bothered by her watching him closely, but she did notice that he would take a sip, tilt his chin towards his chest, swallow, and then lift his head to sip again. It was a very slow, careful process.

Esophageal dysphagia, she guessed. Those nasty scars across his throat weren't for show then. She put the 'english breakfast' pouch back in the box, already knowing he'd struggle with that one, as it had solid, albeit small, chunks of sausage in it.

"Got juice for ya too," she said. "Thought ya'd need summin' with sugar in it after yer great escape from those Corps-fuckers."

Raven didn't reply, but she didn't expect him to.

Weirdness aside, he obediently ate both food pouches she offered him, and drank the juice cartons. While the process was slow because of his throat injury, she could tell that he was doing his equivalent of wolfing it down. She felt a bit bad that this was all she had to offer him currently. He was clearly hungry.

But anything more would require her seeing what she could stick in a blender from Arquebus's ration packs (not a lot, since they liked making everything into fucking biscuits that were drier than a plasterboard), or see if she could make 'blendered mealworms' taste good with nothing to season it with. Catering wasn't exactly her passion, but she didn't want to feed him shit because Arquebus couldn't be bothered to make edible rations. She'd have to figure something out somehow.

"There ya go," she said once he had finished, and gathered up the empty food pouches and cartons before dumping them into the ration box. "Betcha feel better now, huh? Nothin' worse than havin' low blood sugar. Messes with yer mood an' all sorts."

She pushed the ration box aside and scrutinised Raven closely. He evaded eye contact and huddled under his duvet more.

Thumper couldn't believe this was the dreaded Raven. She knew you shouldn't judge a book by its cover but good lord, she felt like she was handling a baby bunny, or something that'd have a heart attack if she sneezed too loudly around it. His face gave nothing away, but he was obviously more tightly wound than a spring at snapping point with how eerily still his entire body was.

"...right, well, ya've had food and drink. I'd suggest ya'd go back to sleep… under the bed or in it, whichever floats yer boat, but, no offence, I think ya need a shower first."

Raven didn't stink, but there was definitely a musky smell that AC pilots usually got after a long, hard session. They couldn't help it, piloting put their bodies under extreme stress which meant they sweated up a storm, and Raven had been piloting his AC for almost twenty-four solid hours. How his brain hadn't pureed into a smoothie yet, she had no clue. But it meant that while he didn't smell that bad now, letting him, er, marinate overnight would be unpleasant for everyone.

Raven didn't acknowledge her suggestion, but his expression grew a little tense.

"If ya think people'll be oglin' ya or summin', don't worry. There's a shower block just down the hall, an' I'll stand outside t'make sure ya don't try t'run naked through the tunnels or whatever. Ya'll have privacy."

The tension relaxed.

"Also… didja get given spare clothes?" Raven shook his head. "No? What, they were just gonna let ya sleep in yer flightsuit? The one ya've been sweatin' in all day? Gods above, do people not think about these things? Ugh, leave it t'me."

Thumper stood up, taking the ration box with her, and pointed at Raven. "Don't move. I'll be back in a mo' with some clothes an' other things. Yer gonna shower, then sleep for at least eight hours. Doctor's orders."

Never mind she wasn't a doctor, just a medic, but Raven didn't have to know that.

She did regret telling him not to move, though, as when she left and returned twenty minutes later with a set of spare clothes that were roughly his size, a towel and some toiletries, she saw that he literally hadn't moved a goddamn inch from his position.

"We need t'teach ya how to disobey stupid orders," were the first words out of her mouth, followed by: "Anyway, c'mon. Let's get ya cleaned up, weirdo."

Raven climbed to his feet and followed her - with the duvet. She had to stop to tell him to put it back on the bed, only to reveal that Raven was wearing Rusty's stupid jacket too. It was way too big on him, but in a cosy sort of way, the sleeves just reaching Raven's fingertips and the furred collar almost hiding his entire throat. The snarling wolf emblem stood out like a sore thumb on the breast.

Thumper shook her head in disbelief.

"Not subtle at all," she muttered.

She let Raven keep it on though - his flightsuit really was too thin for the Snow Warrens - and led him down the corridor to the shower blocks. The noise of running water was loud in the confined space, and the air humid from the steam. While the water was a tepid sort of warm, it felt hot compared to the near freezing temperatures the room would otherwise be.

"Let's take yer to the end here, there we go," Thumper said, directing Raven to the furthest cubicle where he was less likely to be ogled by other showerers. There wasn't really much for privacy here, except for a shower curtain between each cubicle, but it'd have to do. She set the spare clothes down on the bench, with the towel and soaps.

"This is shampoo, this is body wash," she said, just in case this was a foreign concept to Raven. There were a lot of rumours about Walter and how he handled his hounds, and most of them weren't good. "Nothin' special, they're not scented. Ya good to shower on yer own?"

Raven nodded, staring fixedly to the left.

"Good. Gimme a holler if ya need help or if someone starts creepin' on ya. I'll be outside."

Raven didn't acknowledge her, but Thumper felt that this was a running theme of his. She gave him a curt nod and made her way out of the shower block. Hopefully, he'll manage on his own well enough…

Contrary to what seemed to be popular belief, C4-621 did understand the fundamentals of showering.

C4-621 hummed softly, picking up one of the bottles. It really was a bottle of generic shampoo, the kind Walter had gotten for him. He wouldn't be surprised to learn it came from the same source. He put it down and pulled the shower curtain across his segment, appreciative that Thumper had the forethought to let him have a wall to his back.

He would.

C4-621 listened to Ayre's description of the 'Snow Warrens' as he stripped out of Rusty's jacket and his flightsuit. His movements were slow and stiff, his joints aching fiercely even though he made no noise of discomfort. The pain would fade after some rest, he knew from experience. It was a common side effect from spending too long connected to STALKER, along with the crippling migraine that was clawing at the inside of his skull. The darkness under the bed had helped dull it, but in this brightly lit shower block…

He squinted his eyes mostly shut, breathing through the nausea.

C4-621 shook his head and stepped out of his flightsuit, throwing it over the bench. Goosebumps prickled over his bare skin, and he rubbed his hands over his scarred arms, staring at the bright pink lines that webbed from the inside of his elbow and down to his wrists and up his biceps.

He pressed his thumb against his left bicep, and felt the identification chip for C4-621. There was a little scar there where the scalpel had made a tiny little slit for it to be pushed through - for some reason Walter had used local anaesthetic for it. C4-621 would've been able to endure it without it, but Walter had insisted. He always insisted on managing his pain.

There was a mirror beside the shower cubicle, mostly fogged up, but C4-621 could still see his reflection, hazy as it was. He always struggled to recognise himself, staring at this strange, alien creature looking back at him with those empty crimson eyes - and the ugly scars.

He pressed his fingers against his throat, and even that gentle touch had his pulse spiking slightly. He hated contact there. It had taken him ages to desensitise to the sensation of his flightsuit collar pressing against his throat, and even then, some days it drove him mad. Some of the scars sloped down, over his right collarbone - cutting over the far more surgical scars that made a neat 'Y' down his torso: the sort you saw on cadavers.

His augmentations were fourth generation, that's what he had been told, but he also knew he was some form of 'prototype'. A failed one. He genuinely had no idea what lay under his skin, what had been done to him in an itemised list. The scars didn't end at his torso either: the inside of his joints, careful, neat, surgical, and little keyhole scars here and there, the reason for their existence a mystery to him.

If he turned and craned his neck, he knew he'd see more along his back too - twin parallel scars along his spine, marred by uglier, thicker scars that had no rhyme or reason to their placement - likely from an old injury he no longer recalled. The synchro-port was hidden underneath his hair at least, though he'd be able to feel it when washing in the shower.

C4-621 wasn't sure. He looked at this reflection and barely comprehended it as 'him'. This strange, scarred thing. When he closed his eyes and envisioned himself, he just saw STALKER - before then, it had been PREDATOR, the AC he had as Asset 04. That was all people cared about in the end: the AC. What he could do as the AC. That was him. That was 'Raven'. That was C4-621. That had been Asset 04 too.

He scratched at the inside of his elbow, fingernails digging in hard enough to leave red welts, but forced himself to stop. Walter told him that was a bad habit and not to do it anymore.

C4-621 turned away from the mirror and stepped into the shower cubicle. He turned the nozzle, and the shower head spat out water that was icy cold. The shock of it made his migraine pound fiercely, but he breathed through it until the water slowly warmed up to something far more tolerable.

But that was a unique circumstance. Ayre was literally synchronised to his brainwaves, could hear and understand him in ways no one else could. The others only saw what they wanted, and ignored what was inconvenient to them. That was fine, C4-621 was used to it, but Ayre was the outlier, not the norm. They both had to accept that.

C4-621 shrugged, and content that he had wetted his hair enough, leaned out of the cubicle to pick up the shampoo. Squirting a bit onto his palm, he lathered up his hair, being careful around the synchro-port embedded just below the base of his skull. It was imperative he kept this area as clean as possible, but he still had to be cautious at handling it too much. He had heard enough horror stories of port-infections to know it was a horrible way to die.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Ayre sighed heavily, but dropped the subject.

C4-621 hummed quietly, and ducked his head under the tepid water spray to wash out the shampoo.

He wasn't surprised. The Liberation Front wouldn't have survived this long unless they were good at hacking into enemy communications. It made sense they wouldn't go out of their way to save 'Raven' either. He was just an independent mercenary that had - what were Rusty's words? 'Become a threat'? They'd probably hoped C4-621 would get himself killed trying to escape, but instead he had survived to be a problem.

C4-621 straightened up and scraped his wet hair from his eyes, frowning slightly at the news. If Arquebus managed to get those codes from Walter, then the next time he was in close engagement with them, they could broadcast the code and either kill him on the spot or put him into a coma. He wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

He blinked at that, tilting his head.

Well… that was certainly a legitimate fear of his swiftly swept to the wayside. He stared at the wall, letting the noise of the shower fill the silence between them, unsure on how to convey his gratitude. In the back of his mind, Ayre made a soft, huffing noise.

This was why Ayre was the best, in his mind. She understood him so easily. C4-621 felt his mouth curve slightly: a small, fleeting smile. However, a sudden thought came to him, and his mouth downturned into a pensive frown.

Ayre did so much for him. She supported him on his mission, she helped guide him where Walter couldn't, and was the only one who knew the truth of him - the doubts and fears and uncertainties that he couldn't give voice to, no matter how much he wished to. Her only request had been for him to take her to the Coral Convergence, to reunite her with her family, yet on the very threshold… he had fled and taken her with him. He had failed her, and continued to selfishly lean on her for support.

C4-621 let out a quiet sigh, and leaned out of the cubicle to grab the body wash. He'll try to keep his promise, but he wasn't sure how he was going to with his broken AC impounded and him held prisoner by the Liberation Front. He wasn't stupid. He knew what they wanted, and he knew he didn't have a choice but to agree to their terms either.

The galaxy was harsh and voracious - if you couldn't serve, then you couldn't exist, that was the rule. How long would they house C4-621 if he refused to work for them? How long would they keep up the kind facade? Probably not very long. Rubicon had no space in its harsh heart for mercy. As much of a miserable slog existence could be, C4-621 wanted to live. He'd rather die than become Asset 04 again, but he'd let the Liberation Front leash him if it meant he could still live as Raven.

C4-621 grunted, squirting out the body wash onto his palm. He methodically washed his body, keeping his movements brisk and business-like as he uneasily circled that complicated emotion attached to 'Rusty'. He didn't know where to begin unpicking it, was annoyed at himself that it had gotten so deep under his skin that it yanked like a fishhook. He shouldn't be bothered about Rusty fighting him - had known it to be an inevitable eventuality ever since they crossed paths at The Wall.

But…

It was just, the more he thought about that battle, the more irritated he felt over Rusty's words and actions.

All of Rubicon, apparently. C4-621 felt his jaw clench, scrubbing aggressively at his skin. That one sentence rattling around his skull (who needs you who needs you who needs you) filled him with an emotion he'd never felt before - not this potently anyway, not so intense that he could feel it press against the inside of his ruined throat with the urge to say something, but unable to utter it. The hostility and aggression in Rusty's voice had been like a slap to the face - he'd never spoken like that to him before, and it made him wonder... had his earlier kindness and acceptance been just an act? Was his kindness now an act?

How could he even trust him anymore? Rusty acted like nothing had happened - sure, he apologised, but it had been too casual and brushed off, like he thought it wasn't a big deal, like they just scrapped over something inconsequential because of conflicting corporate interests. It hadn't- they could've- figured something out, or faked a fight or... C4-621 would've willingly withdrew, even against Walter's wishes. It wasn't as if that'd be the only opportunity they'd have to penetrate Institute City. Walter was resourceful. But Rusty hadn't wanted to hear it. It was as if he'd been champing at the bit to fight him, to prove something- but what? C4-621 had said he hadn't wanted to fight. Flatwell had even attempted an intervention. Rusty didn't want to listen.

Threat. He called him a threat. Was that how Rusty had always thought of him? Something to keep an eye on and eventually put down when it he felt he lost control over it? How did he say those things and then act like nothing had happened next time they met? Was he completely blind to how he came across? Or did he think his buddy would forgive him at the drop of a hat? The worst thing was, a part of C4-621 wanted to pretend nothing had happened, because he had liked... he had liked the taste of normality Rusty's friendship had given him. They were war buddies. C4-621 never had a war buddy he could sort of trust before.

But no, he hadn't been his buddy at all, had he? Settle what? Really, settle what? C4-621 desperately wished he had a voice, just so he could grab Rusty by his ridiculously broad shoulders and yell at him "what the fuck were you talking about?!" That whole battle still confounded him - he felt like there had been two entirely different conversations happening and C4-621 hadn't been part of any of them. Just Rusty being like everyone else: projecting his idea of Raven onto C4-621 and concocting some elaborate fantasy in his stupid head-!

C4-621 stopped abruptly, staring at his arm. Lost in his increasingly erratic and heated thoughts, he hadn't noticed that his scrubbing had transitioned into vicious clawing. Water ran pink over his forearm, bright red scratches gleaming along the inside of his arm.

Oh.

Walter told him not to do that.

He obeyed. He drew in a slow, deep breath.

He exhaled.

For a moment, nothing was said, the silence filled by the noise of running water. He watched the pink rivulets run down his arm and swirl around the drain near his feet, almost hypnotised.

Ayre's voice was soft and mild, but he could hear the unyielding steel underneath. He ducked his head, chastened, and gently rubbed his palm over the scratches, feeling the sting but noting they weren't deep. He just had to hide them, which should be easy enough.

C4-621 made an ill-tempered noise.

In his current mood, C4-621 would rather walk out into the blizzard completely naked. Ayre made a disapproving noise, but he pretended not to hear it, turning the shower off and stepping out of the cubicle to towel himself dry.

Functioning off a logic that made even C4-621 squint in utter bafflement, yes.

C4-621 was exhausted, achy and fighting off a monstrous migraine, with an unsettled heart that felt like it wanted to crumple in on itself like a neutron star.

(It was a peculiarly distinct feeling. He rubbed his chest. Maybe those food pouches gave him indigestion…)

Either way, he didn't want to discuss this right now. Or think about it. He just wanted to crawl back under that bed and maybe punch his pillow a few times before trying to sleep - and probably have horrible nightmares, as he always had nightmares whenever he was mentally disturbed in some way, so he was dreading that inevitability too.

Ayre.

C4-621 pointedly didn't think of anything in particular in response to that, and focused on getting changed. The spare clothes Thumper had got for him was a thick jumper with a surprisingly soft interior, rather than itchy like he had braced himself for, and a loose pair of jogging pants. He had squinted at the Balam logo for a good while, though, before deciding they had likely stolen this from one of Balam's logistic routes or something. He liked Balam equipment. Good quality.

The jumper was far warmer than his flightsuit had been, but he had still pulled Rusty's jacket back on. He didn't get it. He was furious with him, yet at the same time kept wearing the jacket he had given him, feeling some sort of… way about it.

…

Emotions were incomprehensible.

C4-621 paused, but Ayre didn't say anything beyond that. He straightened out the jacket and picked up the flightsuit, the towel and the toiletries before making his way out of the shower block. Thumper waited for him outside as she said, leaning against the wall with some sort of communication device in hand.

Hearing him, she looked up and stowed the communication device away. Thumper was one of the few people C4-621 kept accidentally making eye contact with since she was so much shorter than him, and it made him deeply uncomfortable. He forced himself to stare at the wall instead.

"All done, are ya?" she drawled, her accent familiar but not one C4-621 could place. "Yeah, yeah, ya look so much better already. Amazin' what a good shower can do, eh?"

C4-621 said nothing, but Thumper clearly didn't expect a response. She turned on her heel and gestured for him to follow.

"Alright, back t'yer room so you can get yer head down. Uncle said he'd swing by to talk t'yer twelve hours from now, so ye've got plenty o'time t'sleep."

C4-621 obediently followed her, and he couldn't help but wonder at how lax the security was. He was a prisoner, wasn't he? Yet Thumper had let him out of his cell without cuffs and was content to leave him to his own devices in the shower block. Not that… he could've escaped from the shower block without her noticing, it being a sealed subterranean room, but still. They had cuffed him from the hanger to the room…

But he had no way to ask, and he didn't want to try and pantomime the question, as his grasp on sign language was still pretty basic. Walter only managed to teach him the important fundamentals like saying 'thank you' or 'I am in pain' or 'I am hungry'. In the end he decided that Thumper was just a lax person in general, or highly confident in tackling him if he decided to make a break for it.

He eyed her. She was short and slim, but even underneath her flak jacket and military-equse uniform, he could tell she was wiry with well-toned muscle. She could probably break his arm without much effort.

They reached his room and C4-621 obediently stepped in when she unlocked the door and gestured. Before she closed the door, however:

"Ah, hey, gimme yer flightsuit. I can try t'wash it for ya so it's not stinkin' next time ya put it on."

C4-621 hesitated, acutely aware that this flightsuit was the only thing he owned right now, since his AC was impounded and Arquebus had no doubt raided and claimed everything at Walter's garage. Thumper held her hand out expectantly, though, and C4-621 was a prisoner, so he relinquished his flightsuit without protest, keeping his expression blank.

"Ye'll get it back once ya wake up," Thumper promised. "Now, get some shut-eye, weirdo."

With that, she closed the door, and he heard the scrape of the locks engaging. He was alone in the room, hair damp and a little cold, but Rusty's jacket and the borrowed jumper underneath were warm. He paced three slow circles around the room, checking the corners and inside the toilet cubicle, before finally grabbing the duvet and crawling underneath the bed.

It was a tight squeeze, but he felt immediately better once he was situated with his back pressed against the wall, the duvet wrapped around him like a cocoon and his eyes staring out at the thin sliver of light that exposed the floor of his cell. He could see the door from here, but no one could see him if they came in.

He had no choice. His body, fed, watered and clean, was already giving into the exhaustion beating him into submission. His bones ached, his head pounded, and his eyes struggled to stay open. He closed them, and drifted aimlessly in a haze of unthinking discomfort, unsure of his future but knowing that it was going to entail some form of servitude in one way or another.

The inside of his elbow stung, the scratches becoming itchy as they scabbed over, and he fisted his hand into his duvet to stop himself from rubbing it. He just knew he was going to have terrible dreams, and he desperately hoped he wouldn't panic this time. He didn't want anyone busting in and seeing him, witnessing how pitiful he really was. Walter was bad enough, but he never judged him or said anything during the bad episodes. Didn't ever show regret for purchasing him, even though he was defective. It made C4-621 work harder. He had wanted to repay Walter's kindness, even if it was breaking himself across Rubicon.

He exhaled quietly, but he obeyed Ayre's gentle command. He stopped fighting the pull of sleep, burying his face into his duvet and pretending he was back at the garage. He had a very long mission, but Walter had told him to rest… his life hadn't been upended once again… he was safe.

He's safe.

(You're not safe, his subconscious said, and trapped him in that broken cockpit, with the choking and gasping and the shredded throat.)

Chapter Text

"...accusations have been levied towards the corporate conglomerates Balam Industries and the Arquebus Group regarding violations of the quarantine zone established in the Rubicon System. The Planetary Closure Administration, the authoritative task force in charge of the quarantine zone, has submitted to the Intergalactical Corruption Unit evidence of corporate assets actively mining Coral on the planet known as Rubicon-3. They have requested that a criminal investigation be opened into the alleged illegal mining of Coral in a restricted biohazard area.

A spokesperson for the Arquebus Group rejected the accusations, stating that "all mining activity on Rubicon-3 are performed by the oppressed natives of the devastated colony for their continued survival, despite the PCA's best attempts to eradicate them via genocidal means", reigniting the controversy regarding the blockaded planet. For decades, human rights groups have petitioned the central government regarding the unfair treatment of Rubiconians and the refusal to deliver aid to the seven hundred thousand colonists still stranded on the planet…"

"Seven hundred thousand colonists," Rusty muttered, his gaze heavy-lidded as he watched the news feed on his smartphone while sprawled out on his bed. "Now that's a generous estimate."

He didn't think there'd been that many when he'd been born over thirty years ago. After a certain point, the Rubiconians ensured to keep their numbers low and their settlements widely spaced across old military bases and bunkers across the globe. They learned their lesson after what some grimly joked 'the Second Fires'.

Rusty preferred to call them what they were: the massacres.

"...you think the PCA are right for their heavy-handed, some say cruel, measures against the native Rubiconians?"

"Their measures are neither cruel nor heavy-handed. After the Rubicon Fires, the UEG's humanitarian response was immediate and thorough, with a robust relocation programme offered to the surviving colonists to other systems. A programme that was used extensively, I may add. I actually believe that those of the 'Rubiconian Liberation Front' aren't native Rubiconians at all, but criminal elements taking advantage of a terrible tragedy to grant them access to the incredibly rare Coral resource. It's been proven that almost 90% of Coral on the black market is traced back to smuggling rings with links to the RLF, after all."

Rusty sighed and rolled over onto his side, tucking his arm under his pillow. He squinted at the newsreel at the bottom: 'Political Expert on the Fringe Territories Weighs in on the Rubiconian Crisis', it said, which Rusty translated to 'Corporate Vulture is Stirring the Pot Again Because Controversy is Profitable', which tended to happen every few months or so.

It had been the worst thing about Earth, honestly. Aside from witnessing first hand the amenities and dignities the solar colonies enjoyed but were denied to the people of Rubicon, he'd been unpleasantly surprised to find that Rubicon was considered a 'fun subject' to pick at and debate about, as if there weren't "seven hundred thousand colonists" still fighting to survive there despite the PCA's and the Corps' best attempts to wipe them out. The internet was rife with conspiracy theories about how the Fires never happened and it was all a cover up to conceal the existence of super secret laboratories building weapons of mass destruction, or that aliens had done it, amongst other things. No one actually, genuinely cared about the reality of Rubicon, just how it benefited their own agendas if they could exploit it right.

It really cemented in Rusty's mind that the only people who were going to help the Rubiconians were themselves.

As his mind wandered, the 'debate' continued:

"Considering Coral can only be found in the Rubicon system, that is not particularly robust evidence. It doesn't necessarily mean the RLF are the main suppliers. The PCA have alleged that the corporations - specifically Balam Industries and the Arquebus Group - have set up illegal mining ventures on the planet. Couldn't they be supplying these smugglers for extra profit?"

"The PCA have always had a grudge against the corporations, and likely decided to accuse them of violating the quarantine to cover up for their own failures. Aren't they blockading the planet? Then how have these corporations managed to slip past their extensive satellite defence grid - the one that cost billions in taxpayer's money, may I add - and boasted to be near impregnable? Yet we see evidence to the contrary: Coral flooding the black market, alleged corporate assets on the surface, unregulated independent mercenaries destroying and stealing PCA property…"

"Yes, I hear that the PCA had lost their entire suppression fleet to, ahem, one independent mercenary. Allegedly...."

"I doubt one independent mercenary managed such a thing, unless the PCA are also going to claim that the so-called 'Liberation Front' have created a super-AC out of some scraps in a cave somewhere. Either way, their unsubstantiated claims and obvious incompetence proves that the PCA is not fit for purpose, and that the Arquebus Group is correct in challenging its authority regarding the Rubicon System-"

Rusty closed the video app and set his phone face down on the bed, realising that the news wasn't going to do anything for his dour mood tonight.

He thought there'd be a sense of comfort, finally returning home after so many years away, but his time with the Vespers must've changed him more than he'd realised. He just couldn't settle, despite the familiar surroundings. He was in his old room, the one Uncle had, for some reason, kept in perfect condition during his ten years off-world grovelling and simpering his way into the Vespers' ranks.

It still had the wonky dresser he had ambitiously made himself, where the bottom drawer didn't close all the way and it was always leaning a little to the left, stashed into the corner to stop it from keeling over. On the wall above his bed was a corkboard decorated with many amateur polaroids meticulously pinned in place, a memento of when he had a camera-crazy stint as a young teenager after finding a miraculously functioning polaroid camera amongst some salvage. It had lasted for a bit, Uncle somehow managing to find film reels for a few years until the source ran dry. Rusty still appreciated him indulging him like that.

When he'd arrived on Earth and discovered the existence of functioning modern smartphones, he had taken a few pictures with it, but… it hadn't been the same. Didn't have the same magic as that beaten up old camera, spitting out ready-made polaroids that he had to shake to make the picture appear. Even thinking about it made him smile fondly.

And the last bit of personalisation to his room was the very threadbare and old wolf plushie that's been with him for as long as he could remember. Uncle said it'd been the only thing he had owned except the clothes on his back when he'd been picked up by a few of his men. Rusty hadn't remembered that, but he'd been pretty young at the time… and likely in shock, what with getting dug out of the smouldering wreckage of his home after the PCA had levelled the settlement his family had lived in.

Rusty still had the scars from that day, from the terrible burns that had splayed over his torso and all down his right arm. How he hadn't died like the rest of his family, he had no clue - how this little wolf toy survived alongside him was even more miraculous. But Uncle always said he had strong luck - not good or bad, just strong. Maybe some of it had rubbed off on little Wolfy here.

Surrounded by these relics of his past, Rusty found his mood sliding into something closer to melancholy than settled. The room was familiar, but almost painfully so. Rusty knew he wasn't the Rusty he had been when he'd left Rubicon, naive about how harsh and long the path before him was. Uncle had asked him, over and over, if he was sure, but Rusty's greatest virtue and worst flaw was his stubbornness, and he was determined to save Rubicon, no matter the cost.

No matter the agony he had to go through, like the unregulated augmentations he got off the galaxy's shadiest surgeon.

Uncle's contacts had known a guy that was able to introduce them to someone who could both perform survivable augmentation surgeries and was able to do it without saddling Rusty with a lifetime of unpayable debt: an infamous surgeon wanted in several systems for "unethical augmentation experiments". He even had the connections needed to secure Rusty with an eighth gen augmentation certificate that passed scrutiny from the Arquebus Group's recruitment team, though god knows what augments Rusty actually got.

The surgeon had been quite a soft-spoken man, Rusty recalled. Also terrifying in a way that he couldn't quite pin down. The surgeon hadn't been deranged or off-putting, he'd been quite friendly actually - but Rusty hadn't really appreciated being called 'Specimen 32' and finding out that in exchange for his augments, the surgeon had received a canister of Coral for his 'research' and extensive notes on Rusty's surgery. 'Very important data for future refinement with other specimens', the surgeon had explained, and Rusty hadn't inquired further.

He'd rather not think of himself as a labrat, thanks.

After getting his augments, Rusty had gotten in contact with Uncle's Schneider 'friend' to apply for citizenship on Earth, and from there… it had been a long slog. The amount of hoops Rusty had to leap through from the very bottom rung of the ladder, despite being sponsored by a high-ranking Schneider member, had been exhausting. But he managed it. He swallowed his pride until he had all but forgotten it, learning corpo-speak and how to brown nose just enough to be thought of but not be annoying about it, and killed his empathy enough to stamp on the fingers of anyone else trying to climb up the ladder behind him, because he couldn't chance someone else potentially usurping his spot before he did what he needed. He had to be ruthless, selfish and ambitious - all the qualities the Vespers looked for in their elite in-house AC Squad.

Rusty was pretty certain he had sold most of his soul to get to where he was, and he likely wasn't getting it back. He didn't regret it, though, he could say that without hesitation.

Still…

He sighed and sat up, running a hand through his hair. He shouldn't be sitting here brooding.

Restless, but not really knowing what to do with himself, Rusty got off his bed and picked up his spare jacket from where it hung on the end post of his bed. He couldn't help but wonder if Raven was still wearing the jacket he loaned him, before dismissing that stupid thought from his head. Raven was likely asleep in bed right now.

And Rusty wasn't so selfish as to go and potentially wake him up just to distract himself from his own dark thoughts. He supposed he could go to the rec area and see who was around, but this late into the evening it was going to be pretty quiet. Also, Rusty didn't actually know that many people here, ten years being long enough for old faces to be long buried and replaced with new blood from other settlements. He only really knew the old guard that were still kicking around like Ziyi or Rokumonsen.

Before his time in the Vespers, he would've been eager to get to know the newbies. Now, though, he just felt tired at the idea of it. Didn't help that everyone knew who he was: Rusty, the undercover agent within the Vespers, who had to kill their own to keep up the pretence. Rubiconians were an adaptable and pragmatic lot, he knew most understood the necessity of it all, but at the same time… he had still killed their own. That wasn't something so easily brushed aside.

But his feet took him to the rec area anyways, for a lack of anything else to do except to sit in his AC in a lonely depression. The tunnels were practically deserted, the only noise being the constant rumble of the generators vibrating through the walls, or some muffled conversation or music drifting from behind closed doors. It didn't take him long to navigate the maze-like warren of the residential block to reach hangar two's rec area.

It wasn't anything fancy: just a large hall dug out into the bedrock with a bar on one side and an open sitting area on the other. Someone had managed to build a pool table during his ten year absence, and the wall was mounted with bulletin boards almost groaning beneath the weight of the papers pinned on there. It was a memorial, where all those lost had a small obituary written and pinned up, and it stretched out all across that wall from floor to ceiling. Rusty was pretty certain they were almost out of room by now.

Aside from the memorial board, there was also a large, wide-screen TV set up above the bar, somehow functioning despite being older than Rusty, though it had a few bars streaking across the screen. It was hooked up to the galactic news, showing the tailend of the debate Rusty had been half-watching earlier - the only channel on Rubicon, since somehow there was one functioning satellite still receiving signals from a colony a few systems over. The news was always a few days out of date - Rubicon was pretty far from Earth - but it was better than having nothing to watch at all.

As he expected, though, the rec room was essentially deserted, with the exception of someone slumped over the bar in quiet conversation with the person on bar duty that night. Rusty avoided the bar entirely, having lost his appetite for drink after one too many 'networking soirees' with Arquebus executives, and made his way to the seating area.

Only to pause when he saw a familiar face sitting in the far corner.

Ziyi.

When he had left Rubicon, she had been a young teen still, pestering Uncle to let her become a 'Coral Warrior' already and proclaiming how she was going to chase those corporate dogs off the planet. Fiery and strong-willed, Ziyi hadn't changed in the slightest except gaining a few inches of height and some bulk, her black hair still cropped short and her face carrying some puppy fat. She still treated him the same too, even though he wasn't able to match her energy as he did before.

"There you are," Ziyi greeted when he ambled over and pulled up a chair across from her. She was leaning back in her chair casually, and closed the printed book she was reading from. Rusty only caught a quick glimpse of the cover before she put it down: a Basho AC karate-chopping another AC. "Done brooding in your room?"

"I wasn't brooding," Rusty lied, leaning an elbow against the edge of the table and resting his chin on an upturned palm. "What're you doing up this late? Thought you were one of those horrible morning people."

"I am one of those horrible morning people," Ziyi said without missing a beat. "But, Uncle wants me and Rokumonsen to do a supply raid in a few hours. Can't let those corporate dogs rest on their laurels too much."

"Arquebus?" Rusty guessed, then continued before she could reply; "I think you're helping them by stealing their rations. Pretty sure it counts as a war crime to feed someone what they call food."

"It's for medical supplies," Ziyi gave him a mean smile. "But I'll make sure to pick up a ration box for you too."

Rusty huffed but smiled despite himself.

They lapsed into a comfortable silence. Ziyi picked up her book and started reading again, and Rusty stared aimlessly into his space, letting his mind wander into something flat and unthinking. He was doing exactly what he would've done alone in his room, but it somehow felt less pathetic sitting in a room that had people in it.

He felt like he was adrift, somehow. He had spent so long sinking himself into the mask of 'V.IV Rusty' that he found himself unsure on how to even function outside of it. It was easy to strip off the less palatable parts, but sometimes he would say or do something that'd make Uncle look at him askance, and Rusty knew that he wasn't matching up to the Rusty he had been before he had left. Uncle never said anything, but the looks were enough.

That was why he had been eager about Raven. He was someone who didn't know Rusty at all, really, and wouldn't care about the war stories told about him from the RLF or the Vespers. Rusty was just Rusty to him… or had been. He was hoping it was due to the circumstances of their meeting and exhaustion, but Raven's cold distance disappointed him in a way that he found surprising.

Uncle was right; he did get attached too quickly.

But, Rusty was pragmatic too. He neatly compartmentalised that complicated ball of emotion to be examined later, likely when failing to sleep, and shifted his attention to Ziyi.

"So, what do you think about him?"

Ziyi lowered her book and gave him a very, very, very unimpressed look.

"...who?"

"Raven," Rusty huffed. "Who else would I be talking about?"

"Oh, yes, how silly of me," Ziyi drawled, closing her book. "Who else would Rusty be talking about but his newest and shiniest obsession? The one that's blown up as many Liberation Front warriors as he has Corporate dogs?"

Rusty frowned. "I think he's blown up more Corps than RLF."

Ziyi just gave him a look he couldn't quite parse. She left the subject there, however, and scraped her fingers through her short-cropped hair with a great, gusty sigh.

"...I understand Uncle's intent. Raven's a ridiculous pilot. If we have him, our chances to give the Corps a good thrashing increases by a lot, but at the same time… he's not one of us. He's an independent merc who'd be looking out for himself first. You can't trust that."

And the thing was, Ziyi was right.

Raven could only be trusted so far, and as an independent merc who was slavishly loyal to his inscrutable handler, that meant you couldn't trust him at all. The dam mission he had taken early in his mercenary career proved that. How can you fully trust someone that had no compunctions in shooting their allies in the back for a higher pay cut?

Especially with Walter added to the mix. If what O'Keeffe said was true about him, then Raven had come dangerously close to becoming an existential threat to all of Rubicon. That possibility was close to zero now, though, with him in RLF custody and Walter likely being lobotomised by Arquebus, but the part of Rusty that learned to double and triple think things over was still wary and unsure.

He didn't know what Walter had told Raven, what Raven would do once given the freedom of his AC again. Would he honour his agreement with the RLF, or race off to complete whatever mission Walter had given him to do, down there with the Coral? Would it be safer to just keep him locked up in the Warrens until they were absolutely sure that the danger of the Coral had passed?

Like when they had fought, Rusty felt torn about the whole thing. It really wasn't Raven's fault. He was just loyal to the wrong person. But maybe… Uncle had a way with people. Maybe Rusty was just being paranoid over nothing. He didn't really get a chance to talk to Raven about it, since O'Keeffe had dropped that bombshell on him literally moments before he deployed on the mission to 'apprehend the trespassing AC' muscling in on Watchpoint Alpha. Surprise, surprise, it had been Raven, and with O'Keeffe's grim warnings in mind, Rusty had made a snap decision.

He didn't have the privilege of hesitation when it came to Raven. If you didn't strike first with him, you were dead. He still lost that bout though.

Abruptly, Ziyi booted him in the shin - hard.

"Ow!" Rusty jolted in his seat, flinching away from her steel-capped boots to rub at his smarting shin. "What was that for?"

"You're making that face you do when you're thinking of something stupid."

"I don't make a face," Rusty muttered sullenly.

"This is what you're brooding about, isn't it?" Ziyi sighed. "Raven."

Rusty coughed.

"Just so you know, this base is too small to endure whatever dramatic breakup you two are going through right now-"

"What," Rusty half-yelped, only to hastily lower his voice when he realised how loud he had been. "What- there's no break up. Where did that come from?"

Ziyi levelled him with a look of utter and total disbelief.

"...buddy?"

"Friends? Comrades? You know what buddy means, Ziyi."

"The jacket?"

"He was cold." Rusty paused. "How do you know about that?"

"Thumper."

Rusty grimaced. Right. The mouthiest medic in all of Rubicon.

"Also, when we found out Raven was being hunted down by those corporate dogs, you practically teleported into your AC and ran off before Uncle gave you the go ahead."

"Time… time was of the essence..."

"Uh huh."

Rusty bit his tongue, recognising that mean smirk on Ziyi's face. The more he protested and tried to explain himself, the more convinced she was going to be of her little theory. Break up. God, as if he and Raven ever had time to have some sort of illicit tryst between missions. He was pretty certain Walter would've had plenty to say about it with how that man oversaw almost every single action Raven did on his missions.

"Well, what about you and Rokumonsen, then?" he asked, trying to turn the tables. "Last I remember you had a huge crush on him. You bit the bullet yet or are you still leaving him love poems in his AC cockpit?"

"Oh, is that what we're doing? Talking about our crushes?" Ziyi, if anything, smirked harder. "Well, if you're so curious, me and Rokumonsen are-"

"No, don't tell me. I want the bliss of ignorance."

"-n't together," Ziyi finished, and rolled her eyes. "I was thirteen at the time, Rusty. I've done a lot of growing up while you were gone."

Rusty felt his mood sober at the reminder, glancing back at Ziyi. Yeah, she really had. He remembered when teasing her about her crush had her red-faced and hissing, easily flustered over something so innocent. None of that now. Just a dismissive huff. He felt oddly wrong-footed that she hadn't reacted how he had expected.

"...you've done a lot of growing up too," Ziyi continued in a quieter tone. "Not sure if that's a good thing yet. I always thought you were annoying before with how obnoxiously upbeat you were, but I kind of wish you stayed like that, now that you're back. The Vespers... they haven't been a good influence on you."

What was Rusty meant to say in response to that? He wasn't sure, so he said nothing at all. Ziyi frowned, clearly uncomfortable with the sudden vulnerability, and picked up her book to hide behind.

"You're like Uncle now… old and crabby."

".........I'm telling Uncle you said that," Rusty said.

Ziyi lowered her book with a gasp of outrage. "Really? I take it back, you haven't grown up at all!"

And just like that, the weirdly heavy atmosphere was dispelled.

Still, her words stuck with him as he excused himself not long after that (and after enduring yet another kick to his shin). Was that how people saw him now? Someone so jaded and worn down he couldn't even reliably slap on a mask? The Rusty of Before had been known to be an optimistic and driven lad, despite his tragic beginnings, but he hasn't changed that much, has he? He didn't laugh as much, true, but he wasn't sulking around in the shadows being dour and unapproachable.

…but he wasn't putting much effort in pretending to smile either. Rusty just didn't see the point.

When he stopped, he realised that his feet hadn't brought him back to his room, but to Raven's cell. He stared at the door for a long moment, unsure on why he was here and trying not to feel creepy about it. 'His newest and shiniest obsession', Ziyi had joked, but there was a kernel of truth to it.

He didn't understand how he could be so drawn to someone he didn't trust at all. Raven filled him with so many conflicting feelings, and he found himself vacillating between two extremes regarding him: he was a threat, but he was also a potential comrade, he was dangerous, but he was also so, so, so fragile, he was a warbuddy, but he was also an enemy.

It almost consumed him at times, but maybe obsessing over Raven was just him trying to distract himself from his current situation. Easier to think about this strange, incomprehensible mercenary than pondering his place in the world after spending ten years living as someone else - someone he didn't like at all.

Rusty tipped his head, resting his forehead against the door and exhaled quietly. He thought it'd be easy coming back to the Liberation Front. Thought it'd be like coming home, but he felt like a square peg trying to be rammed through a round hole - something just wasn't clicking, and it hurt the longer it didn't. He felt robbed of something, but he didn't know what.

…

…he'd feel more like himself once he was back in STEEL HAZE ORTUS. Things were always simpler when-

-what was that?

Rusty lifted his head, frowning as he strained his hearing. For a moment he thought he had imagined it, the hallway filled with nothing but the low rumble of the nearby generator. But then, there, muffled behind Raven's door, he definitely heard something. A voice? A voice, coming from a room that housed a mute person…

He didn't even pause to think. He quickly unlocked the door, telling himself that if it was Uncle or someone who was meant to be in there, then they'd excuse his caution. If it wasn't-

Raven had killed a lot of Liberation Front soldiers himself. It only took one person to…

He quickly shouldered into the room, body tense with anticipation, but he found himself floundering when he was confronted with an empty room. He blinked, reeling, wondering when and how Raven had escaped-

But that noise - voice - sounded out again, strained and breathless - under the bed.

Under the bed...? Ah.

Slowly, Rusty closed the door behind him.

A part of him said he should leave. This wasn't an attempted murder in progress, but something far more benign yet intensely private - but at the same time Rusty found himself unable to walk away, drawn as if by magnetism to the bed, recognising those strained, breathless noises as whimpers and voiceless words. He pressed one hand against the bare mattress as he knelt down, lowering himself until he could peer underneath the bed.

Raven was curled up into a tight ball, one hand fisted into the duvet that was tangled around him, his face hidden behind the furred collar of Rusty's jacket. He was breathing hard enough that his body was practically heaving from the effort, limbs twitching and trembling like he was a moment away from having a fit. That terrible noise was coming from him, guttural and garbled, attempted words from a throat too ruined to form them.

Something about it entranced Rusty. Raven was always so guarded with his emotions, either through text or in person, that to see him like this, falling apart at the seams with such rawness felt almost forbidden. Intimate. Obscene. Rusty wasn't meant to be seeing this, wasn't meant to be witnessing Raven making these sounds as he writhed from whatever agonies his subconsciousness tormented him with, wasn't meant to be privy to something so intensely private.

He should leave.

But he didn't.

Instead he slowly, unthinkingly… reached out.

Chapter Text

Rusty knew he'd made a mistake the moment he made contact.

His fingertips had barely brushed against Raven's trembling wrist when Coral-eyes snapped open, bright as a laser slicer and just as cutting. They all but glowed, twin scarlet stars that enraptured Rusty with how preternaturally alien they were. He'd thought it'd been a trick of the light before, the scarlet just reflections off the faint traces of Coral in Raven's eyes, but it was more than that: they were Coral, overbrimming with a volatile, alluring power and just as hypnotising.

beautiful, he couldn't help but think, staring breathlessly into those vivid eyes, he's-

-biting me?!?!?!

Whatever dumb awe Rusty had been experiencing promptly evaporated at the sudden assault on his poor hand. His high-pitched yelp echoed loudly in the room, too stunned to really react beyond that, which was all the opening Raven needed. He latched onto Rusty's arm and curled around it like some sort of feral cat, trapping him in place while still biting him. In fact, he actually bit him harder!!!??

"Aagnnhgmmffck," Rusty hissed out intelligibly, trying (and failing) to pull his arm free. Raven was well and truly locked on, like some sort of pitbull. Rusty's hand throbbed painfully where Raven's (surprisingly sharp (?!?!?!)) canines had sunk deep into where his thumb sloped into his wrist, and he made a very tactical decision to not pull his arm too much since Raven clearly wasn't interested in letting go.

Time to attempt diplomacy. "I think- ow - there's a misunderstanding... I wasn't trying to do anything weird, buddy! I was just waking you up!"

His voice came out a little strained, and he pressed his free hand against the bed's frame, if only to grip something. In the darkness underneath, those alien eyes were narrowed into a vicious glare, which told Rusty just how much Raven appreciated his wake up call - that is, violently!

note to self, Rusty thought a little hysterically, don't touch him in his sleep?!

"Can we- ow, talk about this? Try to resolve this... ngh, peacefully?" He tried desperately, only to groan when Raven just curled tighter around his arm in response. Diplomacy failed. TIme to use force. With an edge of desperation, Rusty shoved his leg under the bed to plant the heel of his boot against Raven's hip, trying to pry him off.

It went about as well as you'd expect: poorly.

Unappreciative of Rusty's attempts to wiggle free, Raven immediately hooked his own leg around Rusty's, squeezing it with surprising strength and trapping it in place, forcing Rusty into the most awkward position he ever had the displeasure to be forced into. Half of his limbs were now being held hostage?!

"Oh my god." Realising that the only way out was through, Rusty exhaled roughly through his nose and braced himself. "Alright, buddy, if that's how you wanna play it…"

please, he sent up to the callous gods above, don't let uncle walk in on this.

Deciding to leverage his superior bulk and upper body strength, Rusty flattened his palm against the bed frame and pushed. Thanks to the floor being just smooth cement, and Raven lying on a duvet, he succeeded in pushing himself away from the bed and half-dragging Raven out from under it with him.

Then he scruffed the little bastard.

Immediately, Raven tried to eel his way out of the hold. It meant he'd stopped biting Rusty's hand at least, but he was halfway out of the borrowed jacket Rusty had grabbed a fistful of before he realised what was happening.

In retrospect, he should've just left it there. Rusty was technically the instigator of the little… scuffle, as it were, but by that point his blood was pumping, and he'd always been a competitive little shit (O'Keeffe's words). The vicious part of him that the Vespers had cultivated and encouraged snarled at him to put up a better showing, to press the attack instead of backing off with his tail between his legs. He had to win.

He yanked at the jacket, pulling it taut before Raven could slip his arms free of it, turning it into pseudo-restraints with Raven's arms trapped above his head. As Raven froze, realising his disadvantageous position, Rusty rolled onto him, letting his heavier weight pin him down as all the air left Raven's lungs in a rather wheezy sounding squeak.

Rusty had been braced for a struggle: Raven trying to kick him or to headbutt him, or anything, but instead Raven was suspiciously docile underneath him, his arms entangled in the jacket above his head with Rusty's hand pinning his wrists together.

After such a frenetic air, the sudden pause made the whole situation feel weird in a way Rusty couldn't explain. His body was pressed flush against Raven's, could feel Raven's chest move against his in short, quick pants, even though Raven's expression betrayed nothing, a faint flush of exertion high on his cheeks. His eyes were fixed somewhere to the left, head turned away, and Rusty's gaze lowered to his mouth, where his bottom lip had smudges of drying blood smeared over it. Rusty's blood.

It took him a moment to realise he was staring.

"...okay," Rusty said, and cleared his throat when his voice came out all strangled. He pushed his knees underneath him, but still kept his hand pinning Raven's wrists, as he leveraged his body off him. Raven's breathing had started to sound strained there.

"Okay," he said again, far more normally. "I'm going to let you go, alright? Please don't bite me again, buddy. Your teeth are sharp."

Raven gave no response, but his eyes slid towards him, watching him closely.

Slowly, Rusty let go of his wrists and got off him to kneel off to the side. Raven didn't immediately move, staying perfectly still for a full twenty seconds, as if expecting something else to happen, before he slowly sat up, adjusting the jacket so it sat more normally around his shoulders.

Seeing that Raven wasn't going to initiate round two, Rusty checked his hand. Blood coated the palm and was even trickling down his wrist, and the bite looked deep but not serious. He was definitely going to need a medic to look at it, and he had no idea how he was going to explain it. Uncle was going to kill him when he heard about this…

He carefully pressed the wound against his leg, where the dark fabric of his trousers would hide the bloodstain.

"You don't hold back, do you?" Rusty said, trying to strike a light tone as Raven wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Thought I was going to lose my thumb there for a second."

Raven glanced at him briefly, his expression utterly bland, like he hadn't been latched onto Rusty's hand like a feral cat a mere minute ago. The dichotomy really was impressive. Those dull, reddish brown eyes were nothing like those vibrant stars of scarlet flame, brimming with volatile emotions - why did Raven hide it? Suppress it? Rusty felt like he got a forbidden glimpse of Raven's innermost self… and got burned.

"...I'm not mad," he added after a pause, where Raven not-quite-looked at him, wondering if the merc was nervous about being punished for their little scuffle. "That... that was my fault. I should've known better than to touch you out of nowhere, especially when you were sleeping. Nothing's gonna come of this."

As he spoke, Rusty wiped his wound against his leg and lifted his hand to inspect it. He was going to have a nasty scar after this had healed, and some horrible bruising for days. Seriously, Raven didn't hold back in the slightest! He really was lucky not to lose his damn thumb.

"So, let's pretend it never happened," Rusty said, lowering his hand gingerly. It was still bleeding. "Okay?"

Raven stared at his shoulder, giving no indication he had heard him. Just before Rusty could prompt him, though, Raven gave a small, jerky nod and turned his head away completely, staring at the rumpled duvet that had been dragged out from under the bed during their scuffle.

The silence that crept on the heels of that interaction was tense and awkward. Rusty rubbed the back of his neck with his uninjured hand, frowning at what had just happened. As if things weren't strained enough, he had to go and make a right mess by getting into a physical fight with him!

He usually wasn't this bad. Rusty hadn't always been the smoothest of people, but his time in the Vespers had taught him how to de-escalate and charm well enough. He'd thought he could do the same with Raven, after their last meeting had ended up in a fight to the death and Rusty failing to follow through - not from a lack of conviction, but just skill. Raven was a merc, had shot allies in the back before, even, so he wouldn't have taken their fight personally and it'd only take a bit of charm and elbow grease to smooth over any lingering resentment.

Well, how's that going for you, Rusty?

He dug around in his coat pocket, wondering if he had a tissue pack or something to deal with his hand. He ended up removing his smartphone that he barely remembered pocketing earlier, and was about to put it back in his pocket when he saw Raven turn his head abruptly.

Rusty paused, noting how fixated Raven was on the phone.

"...you're interested in this?" he asked, holding it up.

Raven, after a considering pause, nodded minutely.

Well, it wasn't as if Rusty had anything personal on there except for the photos he had taken whilst working for the Vespers, and numbers that won't even work on Rubicon because of the lack of a telecommunication infrastructure. He didn't even lock his phone, that's how detached he was from it.

So, with a bit of a shrug, he held it out.

Raven carefully took it, like he thought Rusty was going to snatch it back at the last minute, but once he had it in his hands he began inspecting it from almost every angle. Rusty was bemused, wondering why he was so fascinated with it. Smartphones were everywhere outside of Rubicon, and surely an off-world independent mercenary like him would've had one too, or at least handled one?

Rusty shook his head, once more mystified by the enigma that was Raven, and finally dug out a tissue pack from his pocket.

As he tended to his wound, Raven began exploring the phone in earnest. He tapped at the screen a few times and started to make swiping gestures. It admittedly took Rusty an embarrassingly long time to realise that Raven had already found his gallery and was snooping through his photos.

"...see anything you like?" Rusty asked.

Raven made a grunting noise, and turned the phone around to show him a photograph. It was during one of the many networking soirees that the Vespers were contractually obliged to attend for Arquebus. They weren't just the corporation's in-house AC squad, they were also advertisements for what the company could offer to those considering a career in AC piloting. Arquebus were one of the leading corporations in augmentation surgeries, boasting of high success rates and lucrative job matching post-surgery. The Vespers were meant to represent that.

Nevermind that Rusty had gotten his augmentations elsewhere, but as far as the Vespers knew he was an eighth generation, and his augmentation certificate had said he'd received his augmentations from an Arquebus Group owned hospital on one of the outer colonies, paid upfront. From their perspective, Rusty ticked all the boxes. Only he knew the truth.

But it meant he had to attend those soirees, rub elbows with corporate vultures and ladder climbers alike, eat expensive hor d'oeuvres while thinking about his people starving back home, wearing well-tailored suits while thinking about how his people were forced to scavenge for basic clothes, and politely laugh and smile at the heartless, vile monsters that masqueraded as philanthropist millionaires but were only concerned with how they could squeeze even more money out of the toiling working class without causing 'too many deaths'.

He wasn't sure why he took photographs of the parties. Never of the people - he hated almost everyone there - but the venues were quite pretty, with beautiful skylines from the balconies or windows. The photo Raven had picked was from New York, and the city skyline during the late evening had been breathtaking, like a sea of colourful stars stretched out across the horizon. It made him think of what could've been for Rubicon, or what will be, if everything went right for them.

"...you want to know where that is?" Rusty asked, and at Raven's small nod, he answered: "New York. It was a tech expo for augmentations and the Vespers had to attend. We didn't really do much except walk around, talk to some people, lie through our teeth about our augments and how they're a really good deal…"

Or, Rusty had been lying through his teeth, since his augmentations were a mystery and didn't seem to function exactly like Arquebus's pioneered eighth gen augmentations. He got a lot more headaches than the others, and had sensory overload issues whenever he pushed himself too hard, but compared to the litany of side effects most black market augmentations suffered from? Rusty got off pretty lightly.

Arquebus just chalked it up to Rusty being one of the unfortunate few that suffered from complications. Aside from being told to never mention the side effects during these parties, he was otherwise left to his own devices regarding them. O'Keeffe had been a great help about migraine management.

Raven looked down at the photograph, his gaze unreadable. He didn't share what was on his mind, though, as he simply swiped the photo away.

Rusty wasn't sure how long they sat there for, with Raven looking through his photos and occasionally pausing to 'ask' him where it was. It was always the photograph of horizons or skylines, the various locations around the galaxy Rusty had been to while working his way up to V.IV. He hadn't realised how many photos he'd taken of such things until now, how many places he had been to outside of Rubicon, how many different sunsets and sunrises he'd witnessed.

It made him feel a certain way.

…it also made him realise he was procrastinating. His hand still ached, even though the bleeding had stopped and the bitemark had scabbed over, but he was dreading the conversation with the medic, and the inevitable follow up conversation with Uncle. Rusty was going to claim responsibility for it, since the alternative was letting them think Raven had bitten him unprovoked, and while it was intensely embarrassing how he got the injury… he wasn't going to damage Raven's chances just for the sake of his pride.

But he wasn't really keen on leaving just yet. The frigid ice wall that had sat between them before no longer felt so impregnable. In fact, it felt like they'd smashed through a layer - Raven hadn't quite thawed around him, but his shoulders weren't as tense and he almost looked at him, which Rusty would take as a win.

Guess Raven just needed to blow off steam by getting a few licks in…

Which made Rusty a little confident in pursuing a topic he'd been unsure about before.

"Hey, buddy… I've got a question."

Raven paused and lowered the phone. He didn't quite look at him - Rusty was beginning to realise that Raven avoided eye contact at all costs - but it was clear he was giving him his full attention. So far, so good.

"Down in Institute City, what was your mission?" Rusty asked slowly, carefully. "By that point, Arquebus wouldn't've been keen on sharing their slice of the Coral pie, so Walter didn't have their permission to send you in there. There's no way he could've secured the Coral with just you, let alone sell it, so I'm… not sure what he was trying to do there."

Raven stared at him silently for a very long moment before he turned his attention back to the phone. Not to resume swiping through his photos, but to open up a notes app and start typing. Slowly.

It put Rusty on tenterhooks, but he tried not to fidget. Finally, after what felt like an age, Raven held up the phone for Rusty to read:

«My mission was to find the Coral. I was to identify the location of the Convergence and destroy any obstacles and threats in the vicinity. That involved neutralising the still functioning IBIS that had been guarding the Convergence. Snail ambushed me after I had completed my task, forcing me to retreat.»

"Okay, but what was Walter going to do after you did all that? If Snail hadn't intervened, I mean. You disobeyed Arquebus... they wouldn't've just taken that lying down."

Raven just stared at him, his expression going distinctly blank in a way that Rusty found suspicious. He was usually expressive as a rock, but this felt very forced, like Raven was trying his best not to give anything away - and ended up giving away a whole lot as a result. This guy... he was surprisingly bad at hiding things...

«I don't know.»

"You can't make any guesses?" Rusty pressed. "None at all?"

Raven's gaze shifted uneasily.

«I thought he wanted to sell it, but as you say, his actions don't support that.»

Rusty made a show of checking his bitemark to conceal his prolonged pause, once more thinking back to what O'Keeffe had told him, literally moments before he'd deployed to the Depths for that disastrous mission: that Walter wasn't working alone, but was part of a group called the 'Overseers', complete lunatics determined to ensure that no one could access the Coral, even if they had to burn an entire planet to achieve it. How O'Keeffe came across this information, Rusty wasn't sure, but he was rarely wrong with his intelligence. If O'Keeffe thought this group existed, and were an existential threat to everyone on Rubicon, including both the Liberation Front and the Corporations, then Rusty believed him.

The only question was: was Raven in the know? Did Walter keep him in the dark? If he did, how would Raven even react to the accusations that his handler was planning on re-enacting a second Fires of Ibis? By using Raven as the spark, even? While Raven did, on occasion, turn his gun on his allies, he was unfailing loyal to Walter. It'd be Rusty's word against whatever Raven believed about Walter, and he was doubtful his word would win...

"So, if he didn't want to sell it... he wanted it for another purpose," Rusty said very slowly, still working out on how to approach his next set of questions without Raven clamming up or going back to freezing him out. "Can you think of any other interests he had on Rubicon?"

Raven fidgeted. Rusty, cultivating the patience he'd gained during his years as a spy, waited.

After two solid minutes, Rusty's patience was rewarded.

«He gave me several missions related to Institute-related locations. He said they were favours for a 'friend'.»

"What kind of friend?"

«I don't know.»

"Did you have any kind of contact with this friend?"

«No.»

"What kind of Institute-related locations did Walter send you to?"

«Watchpoints. Xylem.»

Rusty chewed over that, debating his next set of questions. Despite his initial hesitancy, Raven was open in answering the questions, and nothing in his expression gave away a hint that he was lying. Granted, he was typing his answers down in a smartphone's notes app, but Raven was uniquely contrary in that while he was difficult to understand, he was also fairly open... Rusty recalled a few conversations they had before, when he'd been V.IV Rusty, and had come to the conclusion that Raven was either a terrible liar, or an incredible one fullly committed to the mask he was wearing.

He could be feeding him harmless truths to conceal a more damaging one, or Raven was utterly clueless about Walter's true goals and had been mindlessly going along with his handler's missions without question, content in being an obedient dog. Rusty wasn't sure which one he'd prefer. It'd leave a bad taste in his mouth to know Raven had been willingly working towards planetary annihilation if O'Keeffe's intelligence was right, but slavish loyalty was near-impossible to break through. At least the former could be potentially reasoned with. The latter? It'd be like trying to break down a steel wall with his head...

In any case, it wasn't something he could rush into without some kind of battleplan. People became obstinate when you challenged their worldview, defensive, and Raven digging in his heels about Walter was the last thing Rusty wanted. If O'Keeffe was right, if Raven truly was unaware of Overseer and their plans, then... then it was possible that Raven could be convinced...

Raven waved the phone around dramatically, stirring Rusty out of his thoughts. He glanced at the words on the phone's screen:

«Do you know what will happen to Walter?»

The question Rusty had been dreading.

He knew what Raven was asking: not what the Liberation Front knew, but what Rusty, as a Vesper, knew. The re-education camps weren't a secret, they were a threat that hovered over Balam and the Liberation Front's heads whenever they sortied against Arquebus. But what happened at those re-education camps were shrouded in mystery, and only very few people managed to escape or break free of the brainwashing once they were out on missions. For those like Walter though, he wouldn't be going to the camps, he'd be going to the Factory.

There was no telling how Raven would react to that.

"I… I'm not sure you want to know," Rusty said quietly. "It'll just upset you."

«Tell me.»

Rusty sighed and shoved the bloodied tissue into his coat pocket, using his thumbnail to gently scrape up a bit of dried blood from his skin. Raven still wasn't looking at him directly, but there was a tense, determined edge to his posture, his shoulders curled slightly inwards like he was braced for a blow. He knew it was going to hurt, whatever Rusty told him, but he wanted to hear it all the same.

In a way, Rusty understood, but at the same time he didn't want to be that messenger.

"...Snail will want to make an example of him," he murmured, keeping his gaze on his bite wound rather than Raven. "And to make use of him. You escaped, buddy. Last I recall, Arquebus HQ wanted you captured so they could study your augmentations for some reason, but they know you won't make it easy for them. So, they'll use Walter against you, to make you… hesitate."

Raven lowered the phone. He didn't type anything.

"You've heard of the re-education camps." It was a statement, not a question. "They wouldn't have sent Walter there. He'd be sent to the Factory, which is used for more… strong-willed prisoners. Those who won't break without heavy encouragement, but showed a lot of potential to be useful weapons, at least."

Raven typed slowly with an air of resignation: «neural control implants.»

"Yeah." Rusty was surprised Raven realised it so quickly. "Nasty bit of technology, especially if the patient fights the commands every step of the way, but… it works. If you meet Walter again, he'll likely be in the cockpit of an Arquebus AC with orders to capture you. He won't… he won't be your handler anymore, Raven."

Something complicated flickered across Raven's expression, but it was gone too quickly for Rusty to decipher.

«I see,» he typed after a very long and heavy pause. «Thank you for telling me.»

Then he set the phone down on the floor between them and crawled over towards the bed. Rusty watched as Raven gathered up the duvet before disappearing underneath the bed, the rustle of fabric and quiet 'thmp' of movement telling him that he was curling up under there with clear intentions of not coming out anytime soon.

Rusty picked up his phone, staring at those words: thank you for telling me. He kind of wished he hadn't said anything.

"...I'm sorry, Raven," he said quietly, honestly, even if a part of him felt that it was for the best. If O'Keeffe was right, then Walter had been too dangerous to be left on the board. Now wasn't the time to tell Raven that, though. He erased the message and pocketed his phone with a sigh, getting to his feet.

He had no idea if he'd just made things better or worse, but Raven was going to find out about it eventually. Better before he had the ugly surprise of running into Walter on the battlefield.

"I'll leave you be for now," Rusty said. "If… you need anything, you can use the intercom near the door, alright?"

No response, not that Rusty had expected one.

He left, making sure to turn the light off as he did, and locked the door behind him. He frowned at the bite mark on his hand, and genuinely considered just trying to hide it. Ugh, he probably shouldn't. Human bites could get infected so easily, and Raven had really sunk his teeth in there.

"Could've gone worse," he muttered to himself as he walked, feeling mixed about that whole meeting. On the one hand he felt like he had regained some lost ground, but on the other he got bitten and upset Raven by telling him the truth about Walter. Well, not all of the truth. Rusty genuinely had no idea how he was going to tell him about the Overseer stuff without solid evidence backing him up.

How did you tell someone that the person they looked up to and trusted was going to throw them away as a sacrificial pawn? Rusty didn't know if he was dreading Raven being fine with it or refusing to believe it. What if he agreed with what Walter wanted, for some insane reason?

Rusty sighed, putting it out of mind for now. That was something to tackle in the future, if it ever came up. For now…

…

For now, he needed to think of a good excuse for his hand.

Chapter Text

"We've finished inspecting Raven's AC, Uncle."

Flatwell silently minimised the route plan for tonight's sortie, shuffling the data file into a storage segment of his neural implants dedicated to such things, before turning his focus on the call chiming through the briefing table's comms. The voice quality was, as usual, crackly and had far too much static.

As the amount of augmented humans in the Liberation Front were few and far between, a lot of communication was done through such mundane means: short-range radios and wiring onto the shambolic remnants of the telecommunications infrastructure that had somehow survived the Fires. The Warrens had its own intranet that was fairly robust, but Flatwell did lament how clunky it could be, compared to the streamline ease of Coral augmented neural implants.

"Excellent," he said. "Can you send the data file to the briefing room? I'll interrogate it here."

"Sure thing, Uncle. Just so you know… it's got some weird insides. Institute insides."

"Hmm." Then the intelligence from his Contact might have a grain of truth to it. Troubling. "Were any of the technicians at risk of Coral exposure?"

"A little… but, since it was a Gen Four AC, we were all suited up to disinfect the cockpit anyway, so it wasn't an issue." A crackly sigh. "I can't believe Raven's basically bathing in low-level Coral radiation whenever he's in that AC, though. How he isn't dead yet…"

"The Gen Fours were selected for their high Coral tolerance for a reason," Flatwell muttered. It's why he had only Gen Three augments: his tolerance for Coral had been deemed too low to survive the Gen Four surgery. "Was there any data you could scrape from its memory?"

"No, Uncle. Almost all of its combat and system logs have been utterly wiped. The only data left are the error logs for his neural implant outputs."

Pity. The combat logs from his battle against the IBIS and the Vespers would've been useful… but never mind. Flatwell had expected it. Walter had always been the cagey sort with information, it made sense that his hound would take after him in that regard.

The technician continued, his tone slightly hesitant: "But, those error logs did flag up some abnormalities from specific neural implants. They didn't generate an error code though, so I'm not sure what these abnormalities are…"

Flatwell frowned slightly. "That's not uncommon with the Gen Fours." They were notorious for 'abnormal neural readings', but… "Send me that data, though, and I'll forward it onto one of my contacts. They may be able to say if it's something to be concerned about."

"Understood, Uncle. Sending the data now."

The briefing table chirped, and Flatwell accepted the data transfer. What was usually instantaneous using his neural implants took a literal age here, and Flatwell counted almost four minutes until the data log was uploaded. With a press of a button, the data file was holographically opened up above the briefing table, giving him several pages of technical observations and data that the engineers working on STALKER had collated.

He briefly skimmed the error logs the technician had flagged, but he didn't fully understand what he was looking at. Such things were in the ballpark of a neural-technician, which there was a distinct lack of on Rubicon unless you were working for the Corps. He made a copy and set it aside for later.

With that out of the way, he turned his attention to the 'Institute insides', understanding this a lot better. The technician was thorough in their description and investigation of STALKER's data processing, synchronisation management systems and the FCS, noting that the processing input and output was beyond anything that the RLF had. Not that it was something to be envious of, because…

"IA-C01F: OCELLUS," Flatwell murmured. "Now that's dangerous, experimental Institute tech."

Mostly because it had a nasty habit of killing the AC pilots that used it. The OCELLUS was cutting edge in that it could capture and process data at speeds that were touted to be near instantaneous, hindered only by the physical limitations of the pilot's neural implants and grey matter. Unfortunately these limitations tended to result in aneurysms and severe Coral-burn, and by the time the Fires hit, they still hadn't quite ironed out that murderous wrinkle from their invention. It could only be mitigated by setting a hard limit on the OCELLUS to process at 50% capacity, and even then, only the Gen Fours could 'safely' use it due to their high Coral tolerance.

Raven's OCELLUS had no limitations imposed on it.

Flatwell rubbed his jaw, curious but not particularly fussed about it. Walter had close ties to Cinder Carla, and while the ragtag group of salvagers she ran were like a pack of drugged up jackals on most days, Carla wasn't to be underestimated when it came to innovation and reverse engineering, and this tech was over fifty years old. It was possible she had modified this OCELLUS to be feasible for Raven at Walter's request.

It was going to be difficult to maintain, but Flatwell set that problem aside for later, moving onto the, thankfully, more mundane parts. The generator was combustion-based, a SAN-TAI of all things, that tended to be used with heavyweight, energy intensive ACs - which STALKER was obviously not. Odd, but not a problem. Combustion generators were easy and cheap to maintain.

The ALULA/21E boosters were much more expected; their powerful thrust and fast cooling mechanisms were perfect for an evasive AC like STALKER, and the frame parts were a mix of Elcano and Schneider: the KASUAR head and legs, the Firmeza arms and the Nachtreiher core. None of the frame parts had been modified beyond their circuits linking them to the OCELLUS's synchronisation management system - they were practically off the shelf.

All in all it was… a very, very light AC, almost dangerously so.

Yet, considering Raven's continued existence, he clearly had the skill to make such a dangerously light build work. Either way, Raven ran parts that they could easily repair and source. The technicians estimated that it would take just about a week to fully repair the AC, with a recommendation for a few test runs to ensure the replacement legs had integrated successfully. No complications were expected.

So, a week until Raven was mission-capable. A little longer than he'd like, but still feasible. It'd give Flatwell time to figure out the best way to deploy Raven - provided he agreed to work for them exclusively, of course.

Closing the data log, he checked the time. It had been little over seven hours since Raven had been taken to his room. Thumper had reported that he had eaten and showered, and seemed to be in good health ('if a bit weird', she had added), and Flatwell felt that roughly five hours of sleep would be sufficient for an augmented human like him. The grogginess may make him a bit more pliable in the negotiations to come.

Decision made, he headed off to Raven's cell. It was best to attempt recruitment informally first. No need to drag him off to an interrogation cell with solemn Liberation Front soldiers frowning down at him and a steel table set between them. Flatwell wanted Raven to think of them as friendly allies: an open hand to contrast Arquebus's steel fist.

After all, Flatwell recognised Raven's type. He'd seen it too often in the many independent mercenaries that came to Rubicon out of desperation, and in O'Keeffe too, all those years ago. That downtrodden jadedness, the expectation that life will kick them down, and keep on kicking until they were numb to it… kindness was both alien yet alluring to them. An extended hand was usually all that was needed.

It was time to see if Raven would take it… or bite it.

Thanks to Thumper's forewarning, Flatwell was unsurprised to find the cell seemingly empty when he stepped inside. He simply closed the door behind him and slid his hands into his coat pockets, his gaze lingering on the bare mattress and the small corner of a duvet sticking out from underneath the bed. He heard something audibly shift under there.

Thumper had found the behaviour strange, but Flatwell empathised. The migraines the Coral neural implants bestowed upon their users were utterly monstrous, and Flatwell himself had spent more than a few nights lying under several thick blankets in an effort to cut the agonising feedback. If he'd been small enough to fit under his bed, he would've slept under there too.

When Raven didn't immediately come out from under the bed, however, and knowing that the mercenary would be able to see his boots at least from their low vantage point, Flatwell intentionally made his footsteps heavy as he moved closer. His boots loudly scuffed the concrete floor, and once he was at the bedside…

In one smooth movement, he bent down and lifted up the mattress.

Through the metal crosshairs of the bed frame, Raven blinked up at him with vividly bright Coral-eyes, bundled up in his duvet with the furred edge of his borrowed jacket just visible from underneath it. He reminded Flatwell of a dazed rabbit, startled at having its hiding spot so suddenly taken away and unsure on how to react to being perceived.

They stared at each other for a long, silent moment.

"......it's time we talked, Raven," he said. "Come out from under the bed."

Fortunately, the mercenary wasn't in a difficult mood. Raven slowly untangled himself from the duvet and Flatwell lowered the mattress back down before taking a step backwards, giving him room. Raven crawled out from under the bed and stood up stiffly, his curly hair in more of a disarray than when he'd seen him last, sticking up where he'd been lying on his side. Idly, Raven tried to flatten it, and Flatwell had to bite the inside of his cheek to stifle a smile.

"Did you get enough sleep?" he asked.

Raven gave up on flattening his hair, and made a shrugging motion, fiddling with the zipper of his jacket. Flatwell's gaze lingered on the snarling wolf emblem on its breast, letting out a quiet sigh. Rusty wasn't subtle at all.

"Hm… well, this shouldn't take long. You can go back to sleep once we've finished," Flatwell said, and moved towards the door. "But first, let's relocate to a more suitable environment."

Raven obediently trailed after him, but there was something visibly uncertain about his posture and expression. Flatwell ignored it, opening the door and stepping to the side, silently indicating for Raven to step through first.

The mercenary, however, hesitated. He peered at the open door and then at his hands, before cautiously glancing over at Flatwell. No doubt he was wondering at the lack of handcuffs for this relocation, but Flatwell was confident he didn't need them. Thumper had said he'd been as docile as a lamb when taking him to the shower block, and Flatwell was very much an advocate of positive reinforcement. So long as Raven behaved, Flatwell would treat him more as a guest than a prisoner.

"Is something the matter?" he prompted mildly.

Raven slowly crossed his arms in a way that hid his hands from view.

"...mn," Raven murmured, less a word and more like a vague noise of acknowledgement, but he stepped through the door while still keeping his arms crossed in that odd way of his. Flatwell didn't comment, following behind him and closing the door after them.

"This way," he said.

As Thumper reported, Raven was unfailingly obedient when given direction. The mercenary trailed after him through the winding corridors of the Warrens, not deviating or letting his gaze linger overly long on any branching corridors or open doors. This late into the evening, they only passed a few Liberation Front members, and they all (tried to) covertly stare at Raven as they passed.

"Here we are, briefing room two," Flatwell said once they reached their destination. As he said, it was a briefing room - his briefing room, really, as he spent most of his time here coordinating the Liberation Front's activities in the Central Ice Fields. While putting forth a professional air, it was also far more informal than the interrogation cells: the holographic briefing table took up half of the room, but the other half had a battered sofa that had seen better days, a rickety chair where one leg was shorter than the other, a low sitting coffee table, and a makeshift kitchenette with a squat fridge, a hotplate and a kettle, along with other amenities. The walls were plastered with maps, photographs and other Liberation Front paraphernalia - a tattered flag hung over the door, the stitching of the emblem's outstretched hand already beginning to fray.

"Home sweet home for me, though. I think I spend more time here than in my actual room," he continued, striking an easy tone as he waved a hand to the sofa. "Take a seat, Raven, and make yourself comfortable. I think I may have some coffee that won't kill all your taste buds around here somewhere…"

Flatwell headed to the kitchenette, seemingly focused on his coffee hunt, but he kept an eye on Raven in his periphery. The mercenary seemed almost comically poleaxed, standing in the doorway with an air of betrayed expectation. His head swivelled from the sofa to the briefing table, his wide doe-eyes not really taking in anything as his mind visibly worked a thousand miles per second.

The fact that such a simple show of casual kindness or decency had Raven spooked was actually quite pitiful, but not particularly surprising. Walter was, despite the unsavoury rumours, a decent man when it came to his poor hounds, but broken dogs like Raven needed more than a few months of kind treatment to overcome the cruelties that had shaped them.

Flatwell wasn't ignorant to how most Gen Fours lived in this harsh galaxy. Not only were their augmentation surgeries obscenely expensive, but their aftercare was expensive too. Then came the inevitable medical complications… it all culminated in a debt that was all but unpayable, exponentially increasing and shackling them to a lifetime of servitude. They were excessively dehumanised as a result, regarded as wetware for the ACs, akin to complex AIs rather than living, breathing humans. Flatwell wasn't sure if Raven even remembered being treated as an equal.

So, he made no comment as Raven very slowly navigated towards the sofa like the floor was a minefield, being very particular about where he placed his feet. Flatwell had found the coffee and turned the electric kettle on by the time Raven finally reached the sofa, where he proceeded to perch on the very edge of his seat in a tense, upright posture. Flatwell was certain that if he pulled the sofa out from under him, Raven would be in the exact same spot, unmoved.

"I'd offer food, but unfortunately I don't have anything compatible with your dietary restrictions here," Flatwell said conversationally, deciding to remain near the kitchenette to give Raven the space he very clearly needed. "Do you take sugar?"

Raven just stared at him. Flatwell took that as 'I've never had sugar in my life'.

Well, time to introduce him to that, then. He rummaged through the opened cardboard box where all of his hot drink ingredients were stored. Raiding the supply lines of both Balam and Arquebus had allowed them to collect a lot of cheap instant coffee and powdered tea sachets, along with the coveted sugar packets and 'milk' pods. Or what they claimed was milk. It was the only reason the Liberation Front even had coffee and tea, since trying to purchase it from the smugglers that supplemented their food supplies charged extortionate prices for it.

The downside to pushing the corporations off Rubicon, he could admit. They did offer amenities they couldn't have otherwise, but Flatwell was willing to sacrifice cheap instant coffee and sugar sachets for Rubicon's eventual freedom.

The electric kettle clicked loudly as it hit boiling point, and Flatwell let the silence sit between them as he made the two coffees. It wasn't comfortable in the slightest, but Flatwell had endured more than a few awkward and painful silences in his life, so gracefully weathered it. The mug he had chosen for Raven had a scratched Redgun emblem on it, and Flatwell genuinely couldn't remember where he had stolen it from. Or maybe Michigan had let him have it as a joke. One of the two.

"Now then," Flatwell said as he approached. He set Raven's coffee on the table, and moved over to grab the rickety chair. He kept the coffee table between them. He felt like Raven was more comfortable with a barrier. "Your future."

Raven didn't move. He was staring at the mug like it was the single most fascinating thing in the room.

"Ah, but before that, you need a way to communicate," Flatwell shook his head at almost forgetting. Honestly… he was getting old. Balancing his mug on his thigh, he dug out of his pocket a small pad - one that Raven instantly fixated on.

"Thumper found this in one of the pockets of your flightsuit. I assume it's your main method of communication?"

Raven nodded curtly, his gaze not wavering from it. Flatwell held it out, and wasn't surprised that Raven took it rather quickly - almost possessively really, a tension in his shoulders visibly easing a fraction once he had it in his hands.

"We charged it for you." And scoured it for information, of course. "But let me know if it's been damaged in some way."

Raven seemingly ignored him, tapping away at the screen. After a moment, a flat, neutral voice droned from the device: «It is functional. Thank you.»

Ah, it was text-to-speech, that made things easier. Flatwell sipped his coffee, used to the overly bitter, artificial taste it had. When was the last time he actually had proper coffee…? When he'd had that meeting with O'Keeffe not long before Rusty was sent to Earth, thinking about it. The years had certainly gone by fast…

"Now, as I was saying. Your future," Flatwell leaned back in his seat, letting his posture be open and relaxed. "I won't insult your intelligence. You already know what I'm about to ask."

Raven typed quite slowly, but Flatwell patiently waited for his response: «You want me to work exclusively for the RLF, to help you fight Arquebus.»

"Correct." Blunt. Good. Flatwell preferred bluntness in business dealings. "Not forever, of course. I'm aware that you're not from Rubicon, and likely have your own dreams to fight for. But we currently have a shared enemy, and a shared goal."

Raven's gaze slid to the left, reddish brown eyes almost hidden beneath his dark eyelashes.

"Help us drive Arquebus from Rubicon and I'll do everything in my power to ensure your freedom," Flatwell said. "I've many contacts outside of Rubicon, some with positions of authority within the central government on Earth. I may be able to use those contacts to have your debt, ah, lost shall we say, and give you a clean slate. I'll even be able to introduce you to a skilled surgeon to reverse some of your augmentations, if that's what you want."

Raven was perfectly still, but Flatwell could read his churning thoughts in his eyes - the Coral there was flickering, like a thousand tiny stars, as he processed the offer and what that meant for him, ultimately. Flatwell knew he'd pulled the right hook just from that look alone: it wasn't money that Raven craved, it was the freedom it could offer him… could be achieved in other ways, if he thought out of the box a little bit.

«...I only have your word that you can give me that,» Raven finally said, his eyes dimming. «You make it sound too easy. I don't believe you.»

A surprisingly shrewd response from Raven, but not entirely unexpected. Flatwell smiled.

"But you want to believe me. You want to think I'm telling the truth," he said. "So why not? You've nothing to lose taking a chance on me, Raven, not in your current situation."

Raven looked away, his gaze lowering. Finally:

«Will I be paid?»

There we go.

"It'd be wrong of me to make you work for free," Flatwell said. "But be aware that we'd be taking on the costs of your AC's maintenance and ammunition supply, as well as the repairs it's currently undergoing, not to mention feeding and housing you. Whatever we pay you will be after deducting those costs."

Raven's expression shifted subtly, but it shifted all the same. Flatwell could practically hear the 'shit' going through his mind as he connected the financial dots.

"...and, of course, our funds are limited," Flatwell added. "To be blunt, your pay would be miniscule."

He let those words sit between them for a good few seconds, watching Raven who stared at his untouched mug of coffee with an expression normally worn by those realising they were vastly out of their depth. Walter had always handled the logistics and administration of owning and maintaining an AC, or so Flatwell assumed, and no doubt it was dawning on Raven that being an AC pilot was an extremely expensive endeavour. There was a reason most independent mercenaries were downright savage when it came to bounties and trampling competitors underfoot - the moment you began going into the red, your career was essentially over. Every penny counted.

"Our partnership will be one of mutual need," Flatwell said, resting his mug on his thigh. "You need someone to house you and maintain your AC, and we need skilled pilots to oust the Corps from Rubicon. Isn't that enough for now?"

Raven scratched the edge of his device with his thumbnail and didn't answer.

"...but, if you've had your fill of battle, I won't force you to fight." It wouldn't be ideal, but Flatwell had morals, and unlike the Corps, he wasn't in the practice of press ganging indentured servants to die for him. "In exchange for STALKER, I'll grant you transportation and supplies back to the Belius region, where you can get in contact with Cinder Carla. I understand that she was a close friend of Walter's? It's possible she may take you under her wing."

But not certain, and Raven was clearly thinking the same with how his eyebrows drew together worriedly.

"Or I can smuggle you off-planet. As I said, I've plenty of contacts throughout the galaxy, so it's well within my power. Your debt will remain, however, and I can't assure your protection once you leave Rubicon. It's highly likely that whoever owns your debt will come to investigate once the payments stop coming from Walter's account. I'm sure you're more aware than most of what happens to those who default on their augmentation surgery debts."

It was a low blow, Flatwell could admit it, but it drove his point home: Raven visibly blanched.

"So, those are your choices, Raven. Work exclusively for the Liberation Front in exchange for protection and AC maintenance, or relinquish STALKER to fund your journey to Cinder Carla or off-planet." He paused in mock-thought. "Or, you're more than free to take your AC and wander back into the frozen wilderness to take your chances there. Know that Arquebus is out in force looking for you, however. If the cold doesn't get you first, they will."

It couldn't even be called a 'choice', really, and they both knew it. Flatwell wasn't callous enough to execute him in cold blood if he refused to work with them, potential threat or not, but neither was he soft enough to house someone who was of no use to him. His role as the de facto leader of the Liberation Front required him to be coldly pragmatic when it came to managing their resources, and no matter how much he empathised or pitied Raven, he couldn't help him if he didn't give him something in return.

«It is generous to call those choices,» Raven finally said, after his expression went through various journeys of frustration and resignation. «I essentially have none.»

"You have the choice to select the only viable option available to you," Flatwell corrected mildly. "You're more than free to shoot yourself in the foot if you want to listen to your spite more than your common sense, though."

Raven sat there, visibly bitter, but didn't give into frustrated impulse. His eyes narrowed, the scarlet irises glittering like a shifting cloud of agitated Coral beneath the thick curtain of his dark eyelashes. Flatwell felt something buzz softly in his neural implants - a sympathetic response, one he hadn't felt in a long while. He easily ignored it.

Slowly, the mercenary typed, his expression grim.

«I will agree to help the RLF but I have conditions.»

Honestly, Flatwell would've been concerned and suspicious if Raven didn't have conditions.

"Which is fair," he said lightly. "What are they?"

The pause was lengthy, but Flatwell patiently waited for Raven to finish typing. He had finished drinking his coffee down to its dregs by the time Raven held out his communication device, silently telling him to read rather than listen to the monotone robotic voice recite it all. Flatwell took it carefully and skimmed the words on the screen:

«Condition one: I want to have the opportunity to find Walter and rescue him, if possible. Condition two: I want to have the opportunity to reach the Convergence. Condition three: I want the freedom to cancel my contract with RLF at any time of my choosing, with full understanding of the consequences of such an action.»

The third condition was reasonable, with some amendments, but the first two… setting aside the thorny problem that was Walter, Raven's fixation on the Convergence was puzzling and concerning. They didn't know if Raven was also part of this 'Overseer' group that Walter purportedly was a member of, if O'Keeffe was to be believed (and Flatwell had his doubts), so letting him near any sort of extreme concentration of Coral would therefore be suicidal for everyone involved. Flatwell didn't want to show his hand regarding Overseer, however…

"I have… some questions." He went for the most puzzling one first as he handed back the device. "Why do you wish to reach the Convergence? You won't be able to sell it off-world. It's basically useless to you."

Raven didn't type anything. He just shrugged.

"That's not much of an answer." Flatwell leaned forward to set his empty mug down on the coffee table, before leaning back with his arms crossed. "Raven, I've been honest with you regarding my expectations and what I can offer you. A bit of honesty in return may convince me to divert precious resources towards Walter's potential rescue."

Raven's mouth pressed into a thin line, but he began to type a response.

«I need to go there. I need to go to where the Coral gathers because it's important that I do.»

Flatwell frowned, studying Raven's face. The merc evaded eye contact, though, and Flatwell couldn't discern his expression or what was going through that strange little mind of his. Was Raven being driven by an instinctual compulsion? It was said that Gen Fours naturally drew together if in the same area, mimicking the schooling behaviour of Coral, but Flatwell had dismissed it as baseless rumours. There had never been enough Gen Fours in the same grid square to really test it.

"...and, what do you plan to do once you reach it?"

Raven shrugged, but before Flatwell prompted him, typed: «Nothing. I just have to reach it to fulfil my promise.»

"To who? Walter?"

«A friend.»

Flatwell waited, but Raven's posture and expression was as unyielding as military-grade steel. He counted at least three minutes of total silence, where they simply stared at one another, before he reluctantly conceded that particular battle. It was suspicious as hell, this promise to this equally suspicious friend, but Flatwell supposed that it didn't really matter in the end, because:

"...well, unfortunately, that promise won't be fulfilled for a long time," Flatwell said mildly. "Arquebus guards the only route leading to the Convergence, and unless you're planning on fighting your way through a literal army of LCs and the remaining Vespers, it's not something that's possible for us right now."

Raven nodded, thankfully accepting that with no fuss.

"As for Walter… 'if possible' is the key phrase there." Flatwell debated with himself for a moment, whether to tell a white lie or be openly honest, before deciding on the latter. It'd be worse if Raven found out later. "The last batch of communications we'd intercepted from Arquebus stated that they were moving 'high profile captives' to the Factory. It's likely Walter is one of them."

«......Rusty said the same.»

Flatwell was going to string Rusty up by his ankles for his wagging tongue one day. He suppressed a sigh, and shook his head minutely in exasperation.

"However, while we know of the Factory's location, it's also heavily defended. It's not as simple as rushing the perimeter and punching a hole in the wall to allow the prisoners to escape under their own power. We'd need at least a platoon of dismounted troops to clear the facility, while fighting off the mechs outside. That's not getting into how rapidly they can deploy reinforcements."

Raven's face fell. He knew where this was going.

"I lack the resources and manpower to mount a rescue operation at the Factory," Flatwell sighed. "And the resources to house the large influx of prisoners we'd liberate. We're stretched thin as it is."

«...you will abandon them?»

"I've learned when and where to pick my battles," Flatwell said, unbothered by Raven's accusing words. He had long come to terms with the reality of his position, and that yes, it required him to abandon loyal men and women to ensure the Liberation Front's overall survival. He was used to not sleeping well at night, but he made those choices so no one else had to.

"For now, the Factory is untouchable," he said firmly. "But that's for now. With your help, we may be able to gradually weaken its defences and starve it of resources by attacking Arquebus's logistic routes and claiming their supplies as our own. After a few weeks… we may be able to raid it, liberate the captured Rubiconians and, perhaps, Walter himself."

Raven stared off seemingly into space, his Coral-eyes glittering as he thought it through. There was only one real conclusion he could come to, though, so Flatwell waited, idly considering Raven's untouched mug of coffee. It was likely to be lukewarm by now. What a waste.

«...okay. I understand. If I want to successfully save Walter, I have to work with you towards that goal,» Raven finally replied, his expression settling into something grimly determined. «I will serve you for now.»

'For now'. Flatwell will take that.

"Excellent," he said, intensely and deeply relieved. "I'm glad you decided to be reasonable about this, despite the circumstances. Know that I'll do everything I can to accommodate you while you work for us."

Work, and not serve. Raven was a free man in Flatwell's eyes, he just didn't quite know it yet. He uncrossed his arms and held out his hand, huffing softly when Raven eyed it with puzzled suspicion.

"It's normal to shake hands after striking a deal," he explained. "So, shall we? To our new partnership?"

It was slow, and it was cautious, but Raven did reach out. In any other situation it would've been comical, but Flatwell could see the war going on behind his eyes, the uncertainty in his own decision and the doubt that he had chosen correctly. It was as if Raven was expecting Flatwell to snatch his hand back at the last second, or for something to go horribly wrong the moment he dared to hope, dared to dream of something going his way.

Again, Flatwell couldn't help but be reminded of O'Keeffe.

Raven didn't touch his hand so much as he awkwardly held it close to Flatwell's, so he took that little extra step, gently curling his fingers around Raven's wrist to give him the smallest and most careful handshake he had ever given. Raven was utterly still, his back ramrod straight and his hand as limp as a dead fish in Flatwell's grip. The Coral in his eyes were almost vividly bright.

Raven was afraid, Flatwell realised with some sympathy, but it was time this bird flew from the constricting cage it had spent its life in. There were no masters, no handler to dictate Raven's future - from this point on, his fate was in his hands, whether it'd be dying on the walls of the Factory in a suicidal rescue mission, or choosing to make something of his life beyond being a mercenary for hire. There was so much potential in him, potential Flatwell had seen in O'Keeffe, in Rusty, and wanted to see bloom. Raven could be so much more than a hound beholden to whoever held his leash.

But only time will tell where that potential will carry Raven. After all, as Rusty had said, 'potential and danger are birds of a feather', and while Flatwell was optimistic and hoped for the best, that Raven would become a stalwart ally that will help them oust the corporations once and for all…

…well.

It was good practice to expect the worst.

Chapter Text

Institute City was, to borrow a phrase from asshole Michigan, locked up tighter than a gnat’s ass. 

Iguazu wasn’t even sure why he’d come down here in the first place. The Redguns were done: Michigan and his idiotic backup dancers got their shit shoved in, and last he heard the asshole was either captured or dead. Balam was likely going to pull out in a few weeks at most, and Iguazu was… here, wandering aimlessly through the lower ruins of Institute City, fighting a losing battle against the Arquebus goons hunting him and his own deteriorating mind. 

Just constant ringing, half-formed voices, amorphous shapes wobbling across HEADBRINGER’s ocular feeds, that invasive, persistent feeling of being watched. He’d shot at too many shadows before realising what was happening, had to stop to conserve his ammo - didn’t have the energy left to engage his FCS anyways. He was already eating through the emergency reserves for his generator’s fuel, and Iguazu had no plan for what would happen after it ran dry. 

Why did he come here? Should’ve known better - wasn’t that what he told Volta, before that mission? Volta, you dumbass, just eject, just eject, but he didn’t. Michigan got to him, filled his head with lies about how the Redguns were good for them - it wasn’t, look at where he ended up! Look at them! Volta a charred out husk at the foot of a giant useless Wall that didn’t even matter anymore, and Iguazu, crazy and lost, seeing phantoms and hearing ghosts. He knew that quack had done something to his brain, screwed it all up, that’s why it was so bad, why the freelancer was so much better - his augments were fine, Iguazu’s were DEFECTIVE.

“Listen, Iguazu,” Volta was telling him, “I’m just saying, there’s a chance we can make something of ourselves here. Really something. Michigan promised to help us with our debt and-”

Michigan promised so many things, Volta! Iguazu hadn’t seen a damn one honoured! 

“Fuckin’ liars, all of them,” Iguazu muttered, as HEADBRINGER staggered down a crumbling cavity leading deeper into the earth. “You too, Volta. Idiot, you promised, you promised we’d take him on together, get out, and-”

But Volta was dead and you’re talking to no one, Iguazu. 

He laughed a little shrilly at the realisation, and it was almost as loud as the incessant, discordant NOISE ringing through his brain - through his neural implants. It felt like a buzz, a sympathetic response to some other poor bastard practically swimming in Coral. Institute City was soaked in the stuff, he was realising. The lower he went, the louder the NOISE got, the hazier the air was - faintly red, almost scarlet, with tiny little glitters like metal chaff catching the light. Hypnotic, almost. He couldn’t help but follow those glitters, like they were landing strips and he was a failing aircraft tumbling into a crash landing.

Made sense the Coral would all be down here though, didn’t it? Iguazu had seen that giant fuck off structure in the centre of this fallen city, the Coral that had teemed in the waters there. Everything trickled downwards - shit rolled downhill, Michigan would say often - and so Coral did that too, right? Trickled downwards, so Iguazu went downwards, because where else would he go? Institute City was locked up tight, because that freak freelancer had made a break for it, and Iguazu? A Redgun? Arquebus would scrap HEADBRINGER and drag him to the re-education camps, or outright kill him. 

Had to survive, that was Iguazu’s philosophy. No matter what, survive, because no one else would give a shit about you. Beg, steal, borrow, crush- win. Gamble big, lose big, win big. Iguazu’s thoughts felt disjointed, almost feverish, and on his HUD the words EN ANOMALY began to flash. Ambient Coral density was getting dangerously high. 

Go deeper, something in him said, go deeper.

He wondered where the freak freelancer was. That fucking stray dog had the luck of the devil, would’ve won big at those gambling games Iguazu lost, the bastard, so wouldn’t surprise him if he’d managed to merrily skip is way out of Institute City and was skating around on the surface like haha, I’m free! Fuck you, Iguazu! Looks like I’m better than you after all!

“Raven will have to know you exist first,” Volta teased. 

“Shut up, you’re- you’re not here!” Iguazu hissed, and wildly swung HEADBRINGER’s arm through the Coral haze glittering around him. “I’m hallucinating! Fuck- I’m hallucinating. That fucking quack messed with my head! He said it wasn’t meant to! I’m not- going crazy! I’m not!”

But he was. He’d been going crazy since Volta crashed and burned and left him floundering in Raven’s ever deepening shadow. Iguazu was quick to hold grudges, but Raven was something else - the freak freelancer, something about him held Iguazu’s mind in a chokehold. He couldn’t help but be drawn to him. Felt it buzz through every fibre of his being, an urge to draw close, to- to- to something.  

Indescribable - alien. Iguazu didn’t understand it, so he hated it, hated him, wanted to launch him out of his life so things could go back to the irritable mundanity of before. But it couldn’t, because Volta was dead, and Michigan was also dead or captured, and the other Redguns had either defected, ran or were probably dead. Last Iguazu heard of Red was him getting cornered by a bunch of Arquebus goons. 

he had it coming, Iguazu thought viciously, but there was no heat to it. Red had been okay, for a Redgun. A bit of a bootlicker, but he had a soft side if you knew where the gap in his armour was. Like Michigan, really. A real bastard, ruthless him, and he’d mutilated Iguazu’s face during that ill-advised fight he’d picked, but he’d… also offered Iguazu a place where he was given respect, treated him like some unruly recruit than a piece of wetware for his AC. 

(“Got more spunk than sense in you,” Michigan had guffawed. “I like that, even if you’re a mouthy little shit! How about you join the Redguns?”)

Hadn’t really been a question, as Michigan had already bought Iguazu’s debt by then so he had no choice in the matter, but he’d still asked, and Iguazu had still begrudgingly accepted. Better than his previous master. He had to admit that. Better than Before. 

But all those promises Michigan offered were as good to him as dust now. Red was likely dead too. Volta was dead. The others? He had no idea. 

HEADBRINGER lurched abruptly, and Iguazu cursed when the unstable ground gave way beneath his AC. The fall was short, but the sinkhole opened up into a shallow pool of Coral-laced water, warnings already flashing across his HUD at contamination and degrading armour. He didn’t even have the energy to boost out of here. He waded forwards blindly, the haze of Coral so thick he could barely see. 

No Arquebus goons down here, that was for certain. Iguazu could feel himself shake in his cockpit seat, felt HEADBRINGER’s frame rattle in response, as his hands blindly struck solid stone. He scrabbled, but there was no way out. He’d fallen into a pool of Coral-laced water, and his AC couldn’t get out. High Coral tolerance or not, Iguazu’ll die if he stepped outside of his Core. He was- 

“Ha, well…” Iguazu said. “Luck always runs out. Not that mine’s ever been good.”

Which meant this was it. 

He strangely felt calm at the realisation. He hated things being out of his control, but when they were, there was also a sort of comfort about it. Nothing he did would have any influence on what came next, and it wasn’t because of any personal failure on his part. What a way to go out, though. He’d thought he’d die getting blown up, personally - probably trying to kill Raven. Instead that freak was out frolicking in the Ice Fields, hopefully freezing to death, while Iguazu was down here, trapped alone in the dark.

Had that been his plan, coming down here? Iguazu’s thoughts felt too hazy, struggling to thread them together in any sort of coherency. The NOISE was a dull roar, thundering through his skull. HEADBRINGER ground its head against the stone wall, the metallic scraping trying to drown it out. So loud. That damn ringing…

…zu…

Iguazu paused, straining his hearing. He wondered which ghost was coming to visit him this time, but it was- 

…gua… zu…

Unrecognisable. 

So clear too, like a gentle chime amongst the demonic ringing scraping the insides of his skull, an oasis of calm and tranquillity. Iguazu couldn’t help but mentally pivot towards it, that animalistic desire to live, to survive, igniting in him, overriding his earlier grim acceptance. Instinctively, he knew. This was- his luck once more was changing, the silver lining in his perpetual bad streak.

HEADBRINGER turned its head, and the tiny glitters within the Coral haze were almost as bright as stars. Was it a haze? It looked almost like a nebula, a thousand thousand scarlet stars burning inside, the snap and blink of sparks flashing between them, like watching synapses fire between neurons. Iguazu’s head felt so light. A strange sense of disembodiment crept over him, blurring the line between him and HEADBRINGER. One in the same, a synchronisation level that he hadn’t quite hit before. 

Igu… azu…

It was those stars, he realised feverishly, calling his name. The stars? The Coral. The Coral could talk? Another hallucination? Had to be. Great, imagining some fog of toxic miracle substance talking to him. Next he was going to imagine the freak freelancer wheeling past to gawk at him. Hoped he did. Then Iguazu would drag him down in here and they could punch each other to death.  

Iguazu. 

“You’re not real,” he rasped, and to his own ears his voice sounded strangely distant, like it was coming from lightyears away. “You’re not…”

Yet he was drawn. Inside yet outside of himself, HEADBRINGERIguazuHEADBRINGERIguazu staggered from the wall, into the thick of that nebula of scarlet stars. A ripple danced through the haze - thoughts, words, voices. Tinny, barely heard, his COM chirped a warning that fizzled into nothing.

(‘Warning: Critical synchronisation error detected. Attempting emergency shutdo-o-o-o-overrided. Aborted.’)

He felt like that haze was very slowly unthreading him at the seams, peeling apart layers, examining his insides, a very gentle intrusion that he felt strangely unbothered about. The dark pit he was trapped in, the oppressive weight of the fallen city above him, that despair and rage that had dogged his every step ever since Raven had flown into his life all seemed so very distant and faded, paled in comparison to this overwhelming scarlet. A great sea that promised peace and serenity, if only he let himself be swept away and be dispersed within the collective whole- 

Wait- what? Peace and serenity? Who the hell said he wanted that?!

Don’t you?

No?! Wait- who the fuck is-!?

Pity. 

Iguazu recoiled, the spike of fear slapping clarity back into him. What had seemed so alluring and hypnotising before crowded him as a threatening wall of flickering scarlet, the stars more like eldritch eyes, calculative and clinical, weighing his worth like one would a tool off a shelf. He swung HEADBRINGER’s arm wildly, like he was fending off a flock of aggressive birds, but it was amorphous - intangible. The stars-eyes-stars remained, staring. 

“Fuck- fuck fuck,” Iguazu hissed, staggering until HEADBRINGER’s back slammed against the stone wall with a metallic screech, feeling sweat bead his brow. He closed his eyes - cut HEADBRINGER’s ocular feeds - but the hallucination (had to be, fucking had to be) remained, plastered inside his eyelids. Fuck, he’s had some bad trips in his time, but this was something else. Coral. Coral, had to be, had to be the damn- Coral. 

“Not real, not real, not real,” he chanted to himself, voice rising in pitch even as those soft whispers began again (Iguazu, Iguazu, Iguazu), gentle little needling prods that felt almost tentative in the face of his fear. Like he was some cornered animal it was gently trying to coax from the corner, confused at his hostility. 

Like fuck. Like fuck! He is staying in this fucking corner!

Don’t be afraid. We want to understand you.

Oh god, what the hell was that? Less a voice and more like a collection of eldritch noises garbling out imitation of words, making his neural implants practically vibrate from how uncomfortable it was. Iguazu stumbled around the perimeter of the hole he was trapped in, water sloshing around HEADBRINGER’s thighs as the animalistic urge to run thundered through him. There was nowhere to run, though. He was stuck, remember? 

Don’t be afraid. 

“You’re in my head! Why the hell wouldn’t I be?!” he shrieked, then realised he was yelling at a hallucination, probably, and laughed, shrilly and deranged even to his ears. Was this how he was gonna go out? Really? Reeling through a fucked up Coral-trip and not even getting to die to hallucinating Volta or even fucking Michigan?! What was his goddamn fucking luck!?

The eldritch voice didn’t reply, but the pressure he felt squashing down on what felt like his frontal lobe eased up a bit, making it easier to breathe. He noticed all the red lights flashing across his HUD, then, spitting out error numbers from his neural logs. Iguazu was no neural-technician, but he knew enough to figure out that his AC was warning him of a potential neural implant intrusion.

We want to understand you.

It almost sounded confused, mournful, and if Iguazu were a better person it might’ve given him pause. He just ignored it, though, cursing when he did a complete loop of the hole with no clear way out, his vision still clogged with all this damn Coral hazing the air. He let out a strangled noise of frustration, and tried clawing his way up instead - but HEADBRINGER was too heavy and the wall too vertical. With no energy remaining for boosting, he was stuck. 

But, there was all this Coral. Maybe he could… god, he might cause his generator to explode and cause a chain reaction, and then what? Maybe he’d be lucky and take all of Institute City with him, though. He seriously considered it for a moment.

A shiver went through the haunted fog around him: please, do not burn us.

“Yeah, well, get out of my head, then!” Iguazu snarled. 

We are attempting Contact.

“And doing a great job at it, huh!?” Oh, are we treating the hallucination as real now, Iguazu? It seemed so. He wanted to scream, but whether in utter hysterical hilarity at himself or in furious despair, he didn’t know. “Fucking, fuck- I just- I don’t need this! I’m already gonna die, you gonna make me die thinking I’m crazy too? Why couldn’t you be- Volta? Huh?! I’d rather talk to him than whatever fucked up biblical… whatever you’re meant to be! Couldn’t even give me the decency of a fucking- peaceful death?!”

Iguazu’s chest heaved at the end of his rant, and the eldritch voice was utterly silent - almost taken aback, really, if he could attribute something like shock to a disembodied cloud of Coral, apparently. Oh, he really was losing it, wasn’t he? He was. He really, really, was. 

“...so, unless you got a… fucking crane or whatever to get me out of this fucking hole, just leave me alone you- fucking hallucination or whatever,” Iguazu snapped, but the heat had fizzled out, the wind knocked out of his furious sails. He just felt exhausted. What was even the point anymore, in getting so pissed at everything? What had it ever done for him? Just pinballed him from one bad decision to another until he ended up here: dying in a hole where no one will find his rusted AC for probably hundreds of years, if ever.

…there is no crane, but we can aid you in another way.

“Sure you can,” Iguazu said dully. Only divine intervention could “aid” him now. “You know what? Help me out of this hole, and I’ll listen to whatever bullshit you wanna say to me.” 

The voice didn’t reply after that. He felt like that just confirmed his suspicion it was an incredibly elaborate hallucination, the Coral haze dimming back into a rather unassuming glittery haze, rather than the nebula of stars it had been before. Iguazu’s brain throbbed and he closed his eyes, slouching in his cockpit seat as HEADBRINGER mimicked him by lowering itself into a low kneel, the water sloshing around its waist. 

COM murmured quietly: ‘Thirty minutes of emergency power remaining.’

Well, that’s that, then. Thirty minutes to think about his life and regret everything he’s ever done. Iguazu stared at the thin haze of Coral floating around him, and strangely found himself regretting rejecting Volta’s suggestion to put more effort in the Redguns. He hadn’t wanted to listen at the time, still smarting from that freak freelancer kicking his shit in at the dam and Michigan’s dressdown afterwards. 

Why should he put in effort towards a group so dysfunctional? They spent most of their time squabbling, or trying to ambush Michigan in an effort to kick the shit out of him, only for the vaunted Hero of Jupiter to scruff them and toss them into the training hall laughing like a madman. ‘Hell on Four Legs’ should also be ‘Hell on Two’ because Michigan was a demon outside of his AC. Such an infuriating and annoying asshole. Iguazu wished he got to successfully punch him in the face at least once.

He felt weird, thinking about it. Before that freak freelancer showed up, before The Wall, things had been pretty boring on Rubicon. They’d spent almost two years on this rock, kicking down the Liberation Front’s sandcastles and blowing up Arquebus’s various survey outposts, not really gaining much but… having a bit of fun, he supposed. Volta was his usual partner in crime, but sometimes he went out with the others, and they’d been okay. Michigan could be entertaining, when he wasn’t riding your ass telling you ‘you can do better than that, maggot!’

But it hadn’t been a group Iguazu planned on staying with. Michigan promised to have Iguazu’s debt wiped clean if he spent ten years with the Redguns, and he’d been counting the days on his calendar. There were a lot of opportunities for a debt-free mercenary out in the big bad galaxy, and Iguazu was always a big gambler. He could achieve bigger and better things on his own - admittedly with a positive resume from the Redguns - but it’d been a stepping stone, nothing more. A chain and collar that he’d been dying to rip free from the moment he could, maybe earlier, if he and Volta could’ve swung it. 

“Iguazu, you’re such a stupid liar,” Volta said - told him once. Iguazu had stomped on his foot and told him to shut up. 

“...guess you were right, Volta,” Iguazu muttered. There was no one to hear him admit to his fault, his weakness, and right before he was going to die what was pride going to give him? Nothing. Never gave him anything, really. “I am pretty stupid.”

If only that freelancer hadn’t come to Rubicon. Everything had been fine before he came. Iguazu, with an honesty that only visited dying men, could admit that Raven likely wasn’t at fault for everything going to shit. Guy landed on the planet just as a big Coral surge hit - coincidental, likely, but it still made Iguazu feel better to pettily blame him for everything. 

If only Raven hadn’t come here… things would still be the same. Volta would still be nagging him, and Michigan would still be kicking his ass in the training room, and Red would try pulling that ‘I’m a drill sergeant but you can come to me anytime you need help’ bullshit with him, and… okay, he did help the few times Iguazu needed it, but…

A sudden noise drew him from his sombre thoughts, and he looked up to see… a glint of light through the haze. He magnified HEADBRINGER’s ocular feed, and saw it was one of those maintenance droids that crawled around Institute ruins, mindlessly fixing things, and on occasion electrocuting things if it arbitrarily decided you were a threat. It was peering at him over the ledge he had fallen from, its insect like front legs tip-tapping the edge curiously. 

Then it skittered down… followed by another one, and another one. Warily, Iguazu had HEADBRINGER stand up and back away, knowing that with such low power, he wouldn’t be able to defend himself if the drones decided he was a threat. Why were they even down here? There wasn’t any machinery for them to crawl over.

The water was deep enough to swallow up the first few, but plenty more were still coming, and Iguazu watched in morbid fascination and utter confusion as a literal pack of drones all gathered to make a sort of… slope? Just as he made that realisation, the Coral haze around him brightened once more, synapses firing and sparking.

See if you can climb out now.

“...you’re shitting me,” Iguazu said dumbly. “You’re fucking shitting me.”

The voice said nothing, and the silence prompted him to walk forwards cautiously. The drones didn’t react, and when he planted HEADBRINGER’s foot on one, leaning forwards to grab another as a sort of handhold, they didn’t react negatively to his touch. Slowly, he started to climb, until he was out of the hole and back on the ledge he’d been on before - the passage that would lead back to Institute City. 

He processed. 

“You’re… not a hallucination,” he said. 

We are not.

Well, okay. 

Iguazu honestly wasn’t sure what to do, but he was almost out of power and this passageway was too thick with Coral for him to safely make the rest of the way by foot, so he started to walk. As he did, that curious buzzing feeling remained in his neural implants, and in the corner of his HUD he could still see those error logs flashing: neural intrusion detected. 

AI? It had to be some kind of AI. The Institute had made all sorts of fucked up things, right? Right. Fuck, Iguazu just made a deal with an AI, one that can hack his neural implants, and he wasn’t stupid enough to renege and have it, what, liquidate his brain? You continue to make amazing choices, Iguazu! Absolutely astounding. Volta was definitely toasting your stupidity down in hell, the fucking bastard. 

“...okay,” Iguazu said. “Let’s get it out of the way: the hell do you want?”

We want to understand you.

“Yeah, I got that. But why?”

You have come to our home. You hurt us, and hunt us. We want only peaceful Contact. We want to understand.

Great, it’s a crazy AI. 

“I’m just a corporate merc,” Iguazu muttered. “You’re not gonna get much ‘understanding’ from me. I don’t even know who - or what - you are.”

The voice was silent.

Iguazu just kept walking, because what else was there to do, until he crept out of the passageway like some sort of vermin, standing beneath a half-crumbled highway that partially hid it. He was back in Institute City with less lethal ambient Coral, but with a higher chance of running into Arquebus goons. 

‘Five minutes of emergency power remaining.’

Five whole minutes. Amazing. He should’ve just taken his chances with the Coral. 

Iguazu sighed, and started walking in a random direction, deciding to just keep going until the power went out, and then… well, he’ll figure it out from there. He was a survivor, a petty, desperate survivor, and his instinct will lead him to the next step. His head felt clearer now, at least… strangely. Before he felt like he’d been unravelling, but it was like taking a dip in that Coral haze had scared the crazy right out of him. Or maybe that persistent buzzing through his implants was distracting him from the crazy. 

…

“I heard you sigh there,” Iguazu said. “You got something to say?”

…humans… you are confusing.

Iguazu didn’t bother to deign that with a comment. He wasn’t going to get dragged into a philosophical conversation about how humans are weird, confusing or the galaxy’s biggest villains. He was kind of hoping this probable lunatic AI would get bored and leave him alone, but he could still… feel it, just sitting there in the back of his mind, watching him like a creep. 

It was a distraction, and he blamed that for what came next. 

One moment HEADBRINGER was sluggishly plodding along, scraping the last dregs of energy from its generator, the next three fucking Arquebus LCs came flying down from the goddamn sky, surrounding him with plasma rifles aglow: primed and ready to fire. Iguazu had no choice but to go utterly still. 

Fuck his life. Seriously.

“Halt! You’re tresspa… ah, wait a minute… isn’t this-?”

“G5 of the Redguns: Iguazu.”

“Huh, he’s still alive?”

“I’m right here, asshole,” Iguazu snarled. “If you’re gonna shoot me, just fucking do it.”

For a moment, he thought they were just going to shoot him and be done with it. It made sense, right? He was no Michigan, and it’d be the easier option. As much as it burned him to think it, he wasn’t Raven either. If they were going to waste their time with a Gen Four, it’d be that fucking freelancer, not him, not fucking G5 Iguazu of the Redguns. 

But instead, they lowered their plasma rifles. 

They didn’t say anything else to Iguazu either. Two of the LCs advanced on him, the third keeping its rifle low but still ready to shoot if Iguazu twitched wrong. It was clear what was going to happen next. 

We listened to their communications. Someone called ‘Command’ requested you be taken to re-education.

Lovely. 

“You wanted to understand us, right?” Iguazu drawled, bitterness thick in his voice. “Well guess what? You’re about to get a crash course in how humans are the biggest bastards to ever exist.”

Really, really should’ve taken his chance with the Coral. 

But too late now. He’s made his stupid choice, as Volta would say, and Iguazu had to see how many times life was going to punch him in the figurative kidneys before giving him a break. He wasn’t going to make it easy for ‘em, though. Not at all. Iguazu bared his teeth at the thought. He wasn’t going to break, he was going to yank himself free and sprint for freedom the first chance he got. 

And after that? Well, he’ll figure it out. 

Chapter Text

"Ow-!"

"Stop bein' a baby and sit still."

"But you're burning me???"

Thumper rolled her eyes at Rusty's petulant whine, keeping a firm, iron grip on his wrist as she continued pressing an iodine-soaked pad against his injury. She wouldn't have thought him to be a squirmer, but here he was, whining and pouting at her being so rough with him. Well, maybe she was, but what did the idiot expect, shuffling up to her and trying to pull the wool over her eyes?

"Well, shoulda thought o'that before ya came over 'ere, makin' up some nonsense 'bout bein' attacked by a giant rat."

Rusty didn't even have the shame to look embarrassed. 

"Like I don't recognise human teeth marks," Thumper harrumphed, lifting the pad to get a good look at the injury. 

It had clearly happened an hour or two ago, since a nice dark bruise had started to form around the bite. The canines had broken the skin, but otherwise Rusty had gotten off surprisingly lucky. Any deeper and he might've had an issue with one of his thumb ligaments, and wouldn't that be fantastic? Their best AC pilot, grounded for potentially weeks because he couldn't keep his hands to himself. 

Her rough handling had dislodged the scabs that had already formed, but the idiot had admitted he'd only washed it out with water - tap water at that!!! - so he deserved the discomfort of having the wound debrided.

"Can't believe yer were plannin' on leavin' this," she muttered, giving him the stink eye. Rusty weakly smiled back. "Y'stupid or summin'?"

"Uncle has questioned my intellect from time to time, ye- owwww, Thumper, not too hard-!"

"This is what ya deserve," she growled, grinding the pad into the now-bleeding cuts to properly debride it. "Yer lucky Raven didn't bite yer damn thumb off."

And that was mostly the source of her ire.

Ignoring the fact that Rusty tried lying to her face about the source of his injury (a fucking giant rat of all things, how the hell did he lie his way up the Vesper ranks?), she was mostly miffed that he was sniffing around Raven and bothering him enough that he straight up bit him! Alright, okay, she understood once Rusty came clean about waking him up from a nightmare, but honestly, Rusty should've known better. Uncle said Raven was to rest, not get pestered by pining dolts!

"Y'could've gotten 'im in trouble with Uncle, moron," she said. He finally released Rusty's hand to toss the soiled pad into the nearby hazard bin. "Don't move. I need t'bandage that up."

Rusty sighed, but he obligingly remained sitting on the rickety office chair that was probably older than Uncle Flatwell. Thumper left him pouting at his injury. 

Despite her performing first aid, they were not in the infirmary. They were in the central stores for the Warrens that had been repurposed from an old bunker. The entire room was just a maze of shelves and boxes, meticulously ordered in a way that only the storesmen could understand. Thumper was usually in charge of medical inventory and perishables, but she also knew where everything else was, just in case. Today, however, she just needed to find where the gauze was stored, and jot down in the logbook that Rusty had used some up. 

Uncle was very strict about their supply use being logged, even if it was something as basic as loaning out a single pencil. The Liberation Front couldn't afford losing the odd thing here and there, when they were already stretching their supplies to near breaking point. Which meant one way or another, Uncle was going to hear about this and definitely confront Rusty on why he was requisitioning medical supplies from the stores. 

Eh, but that was a Rusty problem, not hers. 

She found some fresh gauze and noted it down in the logbook ("One roll of bandages and dressing supplied to Rusty due to minor injury - Thumper") before ambling back over to him. Rusty, during his period without supervision, was gently probing the edges of his injury with a small frown. 

"Stop pokin' it with yer dirty fingers," she scolded, sitting down in front of him. "Now, gimme back yer hand - and no squirmin' this time, ya big baby." 

Sighing, Rusty obligingly held his hand out. "You know, medics are meant to be warm and comforting."

"I'm a combat medic, moron." Thumper rolled her eyes. "My 'comfort' is makin' sure ya don't get gangrene or su-"

The door to the storeroom abruptly swung open. 

"-and this is where our supplies are stored… centrally…"

Uncle's voice trailed off when his eyes landed on Thumper and Rusty, frozen in place, with Rusty's injured hand outstretched and Thumper holding up a strip of gauze. As if that wasn't bad enough, Uncle wasn't alone: almost hiding in his shadow and partially blocked from view, Raven peeked around him, his reddish brown eyes almost innocently curious… until they landed on Rusty. He instantly looked away with a complicated expression. 

A long pause sprawled out over the scene. Rusty stared at Uncle, wide-eyed like a green MT recruit staring down an independent merc's incoming pile bunker. Uncle stared back at him like he was already compiling a mental five-step plan on hiding Rusty's body without anyone noticing. Thumper stared at Raven, who looked like he was trying to astral project his consciousness out of the awkward situation entirely and had partly succeeded.

Rusty broke the tense silence first.

"...hi, Uncle," he said breezily, applying every shred of charisma he had into those two foolish words as he hurriedly hid his hand from view. "What's-"

"What did you do to your hand, Rusty." 

Rusty, for reasons unfathomable to Thumper, looked at her.

no, she tried to telepathically convey with her angry eyebrows, this is your mess - and Raven's right there!

HELP ME AND I WILL OWE YOU ONE, Rusty's desperate eyes screamed.

"...........a rat," Thumper gritted out.

"A rat," Uncle echoed flatly.

"A rat," Rusty confirmed. "A… a big one."

"A big rat," Uncle said, slowly. "Here. In the ice fields."

"It… it's an abominable rat," Rusty said with an utterly straight face.  

"Abominable."

"Three feet long," Rusty hastily added, like this made his outrageous lie sound even the slightest bit legitimate. "Very, uh, aggressive."

Uncle processed this for a moment. Raven was now back on the same plane of reality as the rest of them to fix Rusty with a stare of his own. It seemed even their resident cryptid thought Rusty was being too weird for his own good.

".....ten years as a corporate spy, and you still struggle with off-the-cuff lies," Uncle said very mildly. "Thumper, leave that. I'll help Rusty with his rat bite. I want you to outfit Raven with basic supplies, as he'll be working with us from now on."

Rusty was visibly caught between dread at his incoming lecture, and elation at confirmation of Raven's joining. "He's-"

"Yes, he's agreed to join us. We'll discuss that after some other things," Uncle said sharply. "Rusty, with me. Now." 

Thumper expressed no sympathy as Rusty deflated and obediently followed a frosty Uncle out of the storeroom. Raven pointedly avoided the fleeting glance Rusty sent his way as they passed him by, and soon it was just her and their new recruit - and one hell of an awkward silence. 

"...... so," she said loudly. "Need some kit, huh?"

Raven nodded slowly, like he had to think about it, and pulled a device out of his pocket. Ah, the communication thingy she'd dug out of his flight suit before tossing it into one of their very few functioning washing machines. She'd actually been surprised how that had been the only thing in his pockets: no wallet or forgotten bits of paper or even a pen. Raven literally showed up here with just a broken AC and the clothes on his back. 

«I don't need much,» Raven's comms device said, the voice flatly robotic. «Just basic amenities.»

"Somehow, I feel like me an' you are gonna have different ideas on what 'basic amenities' are…" Thumper sighed. "Well, alright. Just sit yerself down there and lemme grab yer kit."

Raven obeyed her unhesitatingly, seating himself on the old office chair Rusty had been sat in earlier. Thumper frowned at how he perched on the very edge of it, his back ramrod straight, legs pressed together and hands flat on his thighs. She felt like she could wheel that chair out from under him and he'd be in the exact same position. 

God, this guy needed to loosen up. 

"Ya can, like, slouch or summin'," she said slowly. "Y'know, relax?"

Raven stared at her blankly. 

"Or… jus' stay all tensed up enough to shit out diamonds. Whatever makes ya comfy, I guess."

At least she didn't have to worry about him nosing around the shelves while her back was turned. With this in mind, she got to work, compiling a mental list of what a fresh recruit with no belongings to their name would need in their day to day. Several changes of clothes, definitely, and cold weather gear to survive - guy was still walking around in Rusty's jacket for warmth. So, gloves? Yeah, and two coats - one waterproofed, the slushy snow around here was hell on the unprepared. Soap and the like. Boots? He probably only had the one pair he came with - oh geeze, that meant he needed a shitload of socks too…

Pyjamas? Did Raven even understand the concept of pyjamas? Guy was going to sleep in his sweaty flight suit before. Oh, underwear too… yeah, he probably needed underwear. A comb? His hair looked like a bird's nest. So that too. Ah, and if Uncle put him on the chore rota, then he'd need some gaters for the outside chores, and a balaclava and earmuffs, and- 

…

This was going to be a very long list in her logbook. 

C4-621 couldn't help but find this oddly familiar. 

When Walter had purchased him, there'd been a period of time spent familiarising himself with his Handler and their mission before they set off for Rubicon, and a lot of it was Walter assigning him equipment. Some of it had been waiting at the garage on-planet for their arrival, but there'd been some of this before then too: making sure his flight suit fitted him properly and getting him several pairs, a proper set of boots, things like that. 

C4-621 had assumed that these items would be added onto his already existing debt, so had been anxious at how much Walter had given him - but when the subject had been broached, Walter had waved him off with a 'consider these business expenses', and that was that. 

But his talk with Flatwell was still fresh in his mind: these probably won't be business expenses, but further debt accrued along with AC repairs, maintenance, food and boarding. C4-621 couldn't help but feel mounting anxiety the more kit Thumper set on the table, painfully aware that what meagre savings he'd managed to collect outside of his debt no-longer existed, assuming Arquebus had stormed Walter's garage and seized everything there. 

C4-621 was already going to start this 'partnership' in the red. He tried not to panic about it. 

I don't think they'll charge you for these, Raven.

But Flatwell had been very explicit: the Liberation Front had to penny-pinch and portion their supplies accordingly. They wouldn't just give this to him for free.

They're basic amenities.

That didn't mean they were free. The galaxy didnt work like that. 

…

Ayre said nothing, but her scepticism was palpable. C4-621 ignored it, because as wise as Ayre could be, she was also incredibly naive when it came to the frugal and greedy nature of humanity's capitalistic culture. Speaking of, he had no idea what legal limbo his current debt was trapped in, with Walter's capture. If Arquebus seized his assets, who was going to pay C4-621's debt? Who owned it now? Arquebus? Wouldn't they just default on it?

He anxiously scratched his fingernails along the sleeve of his jumper, restless but forcing himself to remain still, as he was ordered to sit. He averted his eyes from the growing pile of purchases and tried not to calculate the price - he didn't know how much inflation affected Rubicon for basic amenities since its economy was utterly shattered. Tried not to think about his situation in general, and the bleakness of his future, after what Flatwell had told him. Walter's rescue was a long shot, possibility of failure unacceptably high, yet C4-621 had no choice but to chart it as his sole guiding light in these foreign waters.

Walter handled everything. It was what he did. Anything uncomfortable or complicated, C4-621 knew that Walter would handle it, and he would never have to worry about it. Walter would know what their next steps would be from here. He'd know how to carefully side-step around this alliance with the RLF and ensure they weren't tied down too much with promises they couldn't quite keep. If C4-621 strained his imagination enough, he could almost hear Walter say: 'you don't have to swear loyalty to them to work with them, 621. Just focus on surviving for now.'

Walter always valued cold pragmatism over sentimentality. Mostly. Usually.

"There."

C4-621's gaze snapped over to Thumper, and felt his heart do a nauseous tumble in his chest when he saw how much kit she'd put on the table. Thumper was frowning at the pile with a book and pen in hand, jotting things down - calculating the price? Annotating how much he now owed? C4-621 felt abruptly lightheaded.

"Think I've got everythin', but if I've missed summin'-" she stopped abruptly when she'd looked up, her expression becoming intensely concerned. "Uh, you okay? Yer've gone really pale, and ya didn't 'ave much colour t'begin with."

C4-621 nodded minutely, knowing his expression was visibly pinched.

Thumper gave him a very piercing stare, but thankfully didn't press him. "Well… okay, if ya say so. Anyway, I've got all ya kit here, I think. Let's see, three sets of flight-suits. I took the sizin's from the one ya gave me so they should fit, but lemme know if they don't. They also come with the Liberation Front insignia, but feel free t'take those off and add yer own, I don't care, m'not the fashion police. Those are for yer AC pilotin', as for day-to-day wear…"

She proceeded to list everything, and C4-621 could only think: that's way too much!!!

With somewhat shaky fingers, C4-621 tried his best to do damage control: «Thumper. I don't need that much. Just the one flight-suit and one set of clothing I've already been given will do.»

"What're talkin' 'bout? This stuff's necessary to survive comfortably here," Thumper harrumphed. "I've already put it in the logbook, anyways, so it's yours now. No take backs." 

Oh god. 

Raven, let's just accept this for now. I'm sure that if there is a price tag attached, we can negotiate it by taking on an important job later.

C4-621 wasn't sure, but it wasn't as if he could outright refuse to pay, so he gave into the inevitable (as always). He nodded glumly, and Thumper gave him a very odd look, like she was genuinely confused over his visible despair.

"...right, well," Thumper closed her logbook and set it aside. "I'll help ya carry this to yer new room- wait, Uncle did give you a new room, right? He's not makin' ya stay in the guest cell?"

C4-621 struggled to remember. Honestly, after shaking on their deal, he didn't recall much of what Flatwell had said to him afterwards. His mind felt like it was caught in a perpetual hurricane of anxiety and catastrophizing thoughts with the occasional intrusive 'I want to stop existing for at least five hours', so if Flatwell had told him anything important while taking him here, C4-621 hadn't retained any of it. 

…no, he made no mention of changing rooms. It's likely that's where you'll stay for the foreseeable future.

C4-621 relayed Ayre's words to Thumper, who looked thoroughly exasperated. 

"Well, it's pretty much identical to any other room. Y'can jus' lock it from the outside…" Thumper shook her head and let it go. "Nevermind, eh? Maybe when Uncle trusts ya a bit more, he'll upgrade ya room. Fer now, lemme help ya move yer kit. There's a lot here, damn…"

Don't remind him. 

"I know, I've got a spare cardboard box. Gimme a mo'!"

Two cardboard boxes and haphazard packing later, C4-621 was trudging back to his room without Thumper. It had taken some convincing, but he wasn't really in the mood to tolerate company and he could carry the two boxes when stacked on top of each other by himself. He just had to be mindful to peek around them every so often so he didn't walk straight into a wall. As for making his way through the maze-like Warrens, Ayre murmured directions to him, long used to his utter lack of directional sense. 

Before he had made Contact with her, C4-621 used to get hopelessly lost a lot back in the garage. It got so bad that Walter ended up putting signs everywhere to help direct him to where he needed to go, and annotating what room was what. It must've taken a lot of time and work to do, but Walter had done it without complaint or even mentioning it. 

…he was like that, C4-621 realised. Walter was coldly pragmatic, but he was kind in his own way. 

It made his stomach hurt to think about, but he couldn't really understand the emotion that sat heavily in his chest. Walter was his handler, the one who owned his debt - and so, owned him. He wasn't the warmest of people, but despite calling him a 'hound', treated him far better than anyone else had ever treated him before. He gave him clear, unambiguous commands and direction, yet yielded some decisions to him. Walter held his leash, but he kept it slack, allowing C4-621 to taste freedom with the knowledge that if he began to get out of his depth, Walter would be there to pull on the leash and guide him properly. 

None of that, now. 

Now, Flatwell held his leash, no matter how he tried to phrase this whole arrangement as 'equal'. C4-621 needed him a lot more than Flatwell needed 'Raven', and they both knew it. How slack will Flatwell let his leash be? Or will he keep it taut? He had no idea, and C4-621 was nervous about having to relearn the quirks and boundaries of a brand new master, along with all the unspoken rules that came with. 

…now left here- ah, watch-!

C4-621 made a strangled yelping noise when something solid collided with him just as he started to round the corner. He didn't stand a chance: he tripped over his own feet and went sprawling on his back, the two boxes loudly hitting the floor and spilling their contents everywhere. Above him he heard a familiar voice curse.

…out.

He gingerly sat up, his elbows and back smarting, and rubbed the back of his head. He'd almost hit it on the floor… 

Movement quickly drew his attention, and he tiredly looked up to see Rusty kneeling in front of him, one hand raised hesitantly like he wanted to touch him but was keenly remembering what happened last time he did. Said hand was wrapped in fresh bandages, a vivid, clean white underneath the bright fluorescent light. 

"Ah, hey, buddy…" Rusty said, lowering his hand with a rather loud sigh. "I'm really… not having a good day with you, am I?"

C4-621 said nothing, still pressing his hand against the back of his head. He could feel the edges of his synchro-port dig into his fingers, and thought about how badly that could've gone if he'd smacked that on the floor. It might've been damaged, and then he'd be useless to Flatwell. 

"Did you hit your head?" Rusty asked, looking extremely worried. "Let me see-"

C4-621 lowered his hand and shook his head. Rusty immediately backed off.

The silence was awkward as C4-621 started to regather his dropped belongings and put them back into the boxes. After a pause, Rusty mirrored him, his expression a bit too complicated for C4-621 to understand, as he was only snatching fleeting glances. C4-621 wondered what he and Flatwell had discussed - though, from the looks of it, it had probably been less a discussion and more of a chewing out. 

"Uh, so…" Rusty finally muttered once everything had been packed away - neater than before, as Rusty had been oddly meticulous in precisely folding up anything that could be folded. "Uncle had a bit of a frank talk with me."

C4-621 observed him from beneath his eyelashes, but kept his head turned away slightly. 

"I've… made a lot of presumptions about you," Rusty said very slowly, like he still wasn't sure what it was he wanted to say, exactly. "As in, what you think and… how you feel about your situation."

C4-621 picked up one box and set it on top of the other. 

"Are you… still angry about the- our fight? In the Depths?"

C4-621 climbed back to his feet and picked up both boxes, adjusting his grip. Hesitantly, Rusty stood up too. 

…Raven.

Ayre didn't say anything else, but he understood her all the same. This was a chance to have that 'talk' she'd told him to try and have. Rusty was extending the olive branch, as it were - but only because Flatwell had probably told him off after drawing his own conclusions about what happened with his hand. Maybe they both thought it had been intentional, a venting of his anger, but the honest truth was... C4-621 hadn't known it was Rusty when he'd bitten him. 

The light of the room had silhouetted Rusty's face, and C4-621 had been too groggy to immediately recognise his voice. He just saw a stranger touching him and panicked, and only realised his mistake once Rusty had pulled him out from under the bed. By then the damage had been done, and C4-621 had braced himself to be punished… only for Rusty to be suspiciously lenient with him. It made C4-621 unsure and wary - like everything Rusty did nowadays. 

He just couldn't read him. He never could, to be honest. Even when he had thought him, genuinely, as his 'buddy', Rusty had always been a little enigmatic with how ill-fitting he was to Arquebus. He lacked the callousness, the viper-like precision and coldness needed to function in an outfit like that. C4-621 was ignorant on how to be a human, but he was an expert in how to be a pragmatic killer, and Rusty had only ticked some of the boxes. It intrigued him a little, but also made him uncertain.  

It was still the same now, except C4-621 had been burned and was rightly keeping him at arm's length to avoid a repeat. He wasn't sure what he wanted from Rusty, really. He thought he wanted an explanation, but at the same time he didn't want to listen to his excuses. Much like how a part of him wanted Walter back, a part of him wanted to walk back time to when Rusty was his buddy, and how hopeful C4-621 felt about finally making a friend. Ayre was his friend, of course, but he felt like that didn't count, with how their hearts and minds were so closely entwined. Rusty didn't have that. Rusty had accepted him despite not fully understanding him, and that had meant a lot. 

Now… C4-621 didn't know. 

At least now Rusty was acting like that fight actually had meaning to it. It had rubbed him all wrong with how he just acted like nothing had happened, like no words had been said and they could go back to how they were without question or hesitation, so this was… progress, he supposed. Miniscule progress. 

It confused him, though, because what did Rusty get out of this? C4-621 had agreed to work for the RLF, Rusty didn't have to pretend to be his 'buddy' or build rapport to keep him in line - the cold, harsh fact of I need the RLF to survive would be more than enough stick for C4-621 to remain on his best behaviour. It was a little pointless, if Rusty was attempting this for pragmatic reasons. 

You could just ask him.

As if he could. Would he even get a straight answer?

"...alright, I understand," Rusty muttered, drawing C4-621 from his intense navel-gazing. "Uh, I'll… I'll keep out of your way from now on, Raven. Strictly professional only. I'm sorry for-" 

C4-621 surprised himself - and Rusty - when he abruptly shoved his boxes into his arms. 

"Um-?!" Rusty stammered, almost fumbling the boxes but managing to get a grip on them just in time. C4-621 stared at the boxes like he wasn't quite sure how they got there, and Rusty stared at him, just as bewildered. 

It was only when Ayre gave C4-621 the mental equivalent of a poke that he slowly drew out his communication device and started to type - what, he had no idea. He struggled to find the words, and not for the first time he wished everyone could just understand him like Ayre could, that he could just connect his mind to theirs and do away with the clumsiness of easily misunderstood words. 

In the end, after a lot of typing and backspacing, he just asked: «why?»

"Why… why what?" Rusty asked, his confusion genuine. "Why am I apologising? Or-" 

«You,» C4-621 said, if only to get him to shut up. Rusty, thankfully did. It gave C4-621 the space to think as he carefully typed out the words: «why did you fight me back then?»

"Huh?" Rusty's confusion, if anything, intensified. "You mean, back in the Depths? Because we were ordered to fight each other. Arquebus was expecting one or neither of us to leave-"

C4-621 shook his head sharply and stomped his foot, his frustration clear. Rusty wasn't listening to his question properly. 

«I offered to retreat,» he said, smarting a little at that memory. It had been the one time he had directly gone against Walter's wishes. While his handler had ordered him to eliminate 'the obstacle' that was V.IV Rusty, C4-621 had instead offered to leave, removing himself from the situation entirely. It wasn't as if he couldn't find another way into Institute city, or come back another time, and he had thought his buddy would've leapt at the chance to resolve things peacefully. He'd been willing to endure Walter's genuine anger for that.

Instead, Rusty had flung the offer back in his face without hesitation, calling him a threat-

"Raven, it wasn't that simple," Rusty's tone became gently placating. C4-621 immediately hated it. "I had my orders, and you had yours. One of us had to 'die', and you weren't prepped to fake your death like I w-"

C4-621 smacked his forearm harshly, to get him to shut up, and Rusty got the message that nothing he said would be welcome right now. His head already felt noisy and messy, and he didn't need Rusty adding to it while he was trying to figure out what he wanted to say. It wasn't just the fight! The fight was part of it! But C4-621 had been prepared to fight Rusty one day - in a professional kind of way, no personal feelings attached, but that had- not been professional or impersonal! It had been- it was, it was the-

«It's not that. Not the fight. It was. Words. What you said.» Even now they still rattled in his brain. Was that how Rusty had seen him the whole time, all while approaching him with a smiling voice and a friendly 'buddy'? «That wasn't an act you were putting on. You were saying what you really thought. I was just a threat to you all along. Something to get rid of when I became inconvenient. You never trusted me. I was never your buddy. I was just an enemy to you.»

Rusty said nothing. He just lowered his gaze. 

C4-621 took a moment to take deep, slow breaths, feeling both better and worse that he got that out. Better, because it was said, worse, because Rusty didn't deny it. 

«I thought you were my friend. It hurt to know that you didn't feel the same,» C4-621 admitted, and he was surprised at how upset he felt when he really thought about it. It was just another rock to the building avalanche threatening to crush his heart, nestling next to 'Walter is gone'.  

"...I wanted to be," Rusty said very quietly, roughly. "But."

He stopped, and this time C4-621 was the one to wait. He actually mustered the courage to look Rusty in the eyes, even as every inch of him shuddered in discomfort from it. Rusty's eyes were a bright shade of blue with a red limbal ring. It was a vivid contrast. 

"You're hard to understand, Raven, and no one knows what your real motives are," Rusty murmured. "What Walter's motives are. We've already established that he's not here to find and sell the Coral, that he's been poking around Institute ruins... that's suspicious, dangerously suspicious, and- and you're loyal to him. If I can't trust Walter, know what he's really here for, then I can't trust you."

«Walter isn't a threat to Rubicon.» C4-621 defended his handler immediately, even if he… understood that perspective. Walter hid things even from him, but C4-621 trusted him despite the secrecy, despite even Ayre voicing her doubts. Walter was his handler. He never led C4-621 astray. He was kind to him, even if it was buried underneath several hundred layers of gruffness. He accomodated his unique needs without complaint. He let him have slack in his leash. C4-621 trusted him. 

He had to trust him. Everything Walter did... it had a good reason. Maybe he just wanted to salvage Institute tech, and needed the Coral for that. Maybe there was a perfectly plausible reason for Walter to be here, for him to want the Coral, that wasn't suspicious or dangerous at all. Rusty was being paranoid. Everyone was being paranoid. Walter wasn't a threat to Rubicon, to C4-621. There was no reason to distrust him. 

...Raven... 

"Maybe he isn't," Rusty said, doubt thick in his voice. "But until we know what he's here for, then we'll treat him as if he is. The people who come to Rubicon never have this world's best interests at heart, and everything to do with the Institute just brings misery. It's safer to assume malice, at this point." 

C4-621 couldn't really argue that logic considering Rubicon's history, so he sharply deviated from that topic entirely: «Then what about now? I'm with the RLF. Will you trust me now?»

Rusty didn't immediately answer, seemed to actually give it some thought. C4-621 felt his heart hammer uncomfortably fast in his chest, and he didn't know why he suddenly felt so nervous about his answer. 

"I want to," Rusty finally said, "But I don't know if I can, right now." 

It wasn't what C4-621 wanted to hear, but it was an actual honest, straight answer. He felt conflicted about it, like with anything Rusty-associated, but after a pause he decided he was content with the response. Rusty wanted to trust him, and didn't know if he could, and C4-621 felt the same. They were on the same page - were staring at the exact same problem with no idea on how to surmount it. 

It'll do. 

Rusty fidgeted as a tense silence threatened to yawn between them and C4-621 tucked away his communication's device. He didn't claim the boxes from Rusty though - he just walked past him. 

"Uh… Raven?"

C4-621 just gestured for him to follow without breaking stride. Hesitantly, he heard Rusty's footsteps follow him. Nothing was said, but C4-621 didn't know what he'd even say anyways. His emotions felt so scatter-shot and raw that he just wanted to stuff them in a box and bury them out in the ice fields somewhere to rot out of sight. 

You did very well, Raven. I think that talk was good for both of you. 

Was it? The air felt so awkward, and Rusty was uncharacteristically quiet. C4-621 didn't even know the path forward from here. They didn't trust each other, didn't know if they could trust each other, yet were drawn to one another all the same - how did you deal with that?

By rebuilding that trust, slowly and carefully.

It sounded like it'd be hard for a well-adjusted, socialised person. But for a "brain-fried" mercenary like him, who barely remembered how to be human…? He had no idea where to start. 

But, as he peeked over his shoulder, he saw that Rusty looked just as lost as he felt, so maybe that feeling was mutual for once. 

They'll just have to see where it went from here.

Chapter Text

Contrary to popular belief, Rusty was bad at people. 

He learned to pretend otherwise, obviously, yet another false brick that made up the facade V.IV Rusty. Arquebus peddled him as the friendly Vesper, alongside Pater and Hawkins, and so was selected whenever they needed a pilot to demonstrate AC weaponry or frames to prospective buyers. Not only did he have to demo flawlessly, he had to be able to paste on a friendly smile and schmooze with customers, all while knowing that one misspoken word, one lapse in tone, would have Arquebus coming down on his neck like a tonne of bricks. 

Pater and Hawkins did the smooth-talking better than him, but Rusty’s advantage was both in his fabricated backstory and his looks, to put it bluntly. He was handsome, he was desirable, and the upper-class of corporate warlords that Arquebus catered to were charmed by his ‘rustic upbringing’. Compared to the surgical politeness of Pater and Hawkins’s affable charisma, Rusty came across as a diamond in the rough, a colony bumpkin who had ambitions in spades and the gumption to achieve them. It was attractive, more marketable.  

(“You should lean into it more,” the HR agent advised. “Pretend to be a little ignorant of Earth customs and a bit more bashful, less flirty. This client loves the naive countryboy act.”)

So utterly, thoroughly fake.

Everything Rusty had learned in Arquebus was useless to him now. The Liberation Front didn’t function like a corporation, where conversations were multi-layered and saying exactly what you felt and meant was a career death sentence. Everyone knew each other’s business in the Warrens, and if they didn’t, they’d know it soon enough thanks to the power of gossip. There was no room for backstabbing, whispered rumours or schemes - no room for vipers. 

Rusty had no idea how to insert himself into that kind of environment. To be honest and blunt, so upfront about his thoughts and feelings, almost had him breaking out into a cold sweat. After spending ten years knowing that anyone discovering the truth of him would end up with him killed - or worse - peeling back V.IV Rusty to make way for the real Rusty had his pulse sprinting like he had that Ice Worm bearing down on him again. It was dangerous, his instinct said, it made him far too vulnerable.

He just pretended otherwise, of course. It was second nature to him now. But that wasn’t cutting it where it mattered most: Raven. 

Oh, V.IV Rusty had run the social calculations when Raven asked him that question (“Will you trust me now?”), and had swiftly weighed the pros and cons of a little white lie or a blatant one. Would he gain more by saying “yes, I trust you now” or “yes, I’ll be able to trust you”? Would he be able to soothe the lingering betrayal that powered Raven’s suspicion and finally have him open up to him again? V.IV Rusty craved that - had to be accepted, had to keep the strongest player on side at all times -  and the temptation to utter those lies was overpowering. 

It had worked so well last time, the cold viper side of him muttered, and Raven’s socially inept - he’d believe you, because he wants to believe you. He’s lonely. He’s vulnerable. He’s lost. He wants someone to lean on, even though he’s been burned. Raven will believe whatever lie you say right now. With four little words - ‘I trust you, buddy’ - V.IV Rusty can fix his fatal misstep in failing to eliminate Raven and gain a powerful asset all in one go. It was an easy calculation. Win/Win.

Rusty didn’t know why he told the truth instead. 

It left him in an uncertain limbo. Raven’s reaction had been inscrutable, and even V.IV Rusty found himself at a loss on how to navigate these murky waters. He’d never been able to fully read Raven, though. Even when they were buddies and Raven freely shared his strange thoughts with him, Rusty never really knew what motivated him, what could be used as leverage, what could be used to manipulate him to ensure he never bared his fangs at him. 

Raven had always been an enigma, a wildcard - a threat. Too powerful to be left to roam unsupervised, too unpredictable to spare.

As a mole within Arquebus, on the cusp of victory and finding himself with Raven’s kill orders slithering across his HUD, telling himself such things made it easy to suffocate whatever misgivings and uneasiness he had about it. It wouldn’t have been the first time V.IV Rusty killed a trusted ally on Arquebus’s orders, and he’d gotten very good at burying his guilt and self-disgust by repeating ‘It’s for Rubicon’ like a protective mantra. He’ll hate himself a little, mourn the loss of Raven, compartmentalise, and move on. As always. 

But like in everything, Raven had blown that plan to smithereens. 

Rusty sighed soundlessly, tired of his own churning thoughts, but didn’t dare say anything to break the charged silence that had fallen between him and Raven. They weren’t that far from Raven’s room - or cell - but the merc wasn’t walking that fast. His stride was slow and short, and at every corner and junction he always seemed to hesitate for a moment before turning, and the Warrens had a lot of corners and junctions. 

It gave Rusty too much time to get lost in his head, to second guess why he told the truth instead of the far easier lie - but feeling like he’d made the right choice all the same. If the source of Raven’s resentment was at being lied to, then it made sense to be honest, didn’t it? Imagine his fury if he’d caught Rusty lying yet again…

V.IV Rusty ran the social calculations, and decided yes, honesty had been the best choice in retrospect. It seemed instinct was wiser than conscious thought this time. 

But, not even that cold, logical explanation fitted right in why Rusty had decided to be impulsively honest. He couldn’t put his finger on it. The automatic lie had just clogged up his throat beneath Raven’s gaze - and maybe that was it. Raven’s eyes. He had actually been looking at Rusty - not just past his shoulder, not at his chest, not above his head - Raven had looked right at him with those eerie yet brilliant Coral-eyes of his. It made him felt seen. Exposed. 

Vulnerable. 

Rusty bit the inside of his cheek, irritated at the incoherent swerves his thoughts were taking, and readjusted his grip on the boxes. His hand was aching slightly, but he stoically ignored the throbbing pain as they took one last turn and came to a slow halt in front of Raven’s door. 

Throughout the whole walk, Raven had remained ahead of him and hadn’t looked back once. Now, the merc pivoted slightly, his reddish-brown eyes peering at him from beneath his eyelashes in a way that many would think coquettish, but Rusty understood to be otherwise. 

It was the natural softness to his face that gave Raven’s emotionless glances an edge of forbidden allure. It made it easy to project your own thoughts onto the wall of beautiful silence that Raven offered, and after his talk with Flatwell, Rusty was keenly aware that he wasn’t immune to it himself. He’d assumed so many things about Raven, tried to read a lot into those silences based on a flawed mental profile built during their shared missions, and did so unthinkingly. 

So, he didn’t bother assuming what Raven was trying to convey with that heavy-lidded, enigmatic stare, or why he let Rusty follow him despite not responding to his answer regarding trust. The part of him that was V.IV Rusty baulked at blindly wading into a conversation without already anticipating several steps ahead of where it would go, but Rusty needed to outgrow that viper - had to shed his skin to become the wolf he claimed he was. 

“What’s up, buddy?” he asked. “What do you want me to do?”

Raven looked away from him, silently staring at the door.

He always moved at his own pace when he wasn’t being shot at, a fact Rusty was intimately aware of after witnessing it on several missions. Raven tended to veer off in random directions, or space out entirely, his AC standing motionlessly until Walter had to prompt him with a firm order. Rusty wasn’t sure if it was a troubled attention span or something else, but he counted thirty seconds of total silence before Raven seemed to remember a question was asked of him. 

Slowly, Raven pointed at the door. 

“...?” Oh. Wait. “Do you know the code for it?”

After a pause, Raven shook his head ‘no’. 

“It's 3615," Rusty said. "Then you hit the orange button on the bottom left."

Raven turned to the keypad next to the door, and seemed to inspect it closely before carefully inputting the numbers. Rusty was curious - he remembered Raven watching him input the code the first time he took him here, very closely at that. Was he bad at remembering numbers? 

“If it’ll help you to remember,” Rusty said as they stepped into the room together. “Think: three times two, take away one equals five.” 

Raven’s brow furrowed and he looked down at his hands. Rusty watched as he held up three fingers, then six, and took away one to make five. He repeated the action a few times before he nodded slowly, as if to say he understood. Whether it’d help him remember, Rusty didn’t know, but it was either that or writing it down on a slip of paper, which risked making Uncle grouchy over ‘poor security’ if he ever found out. 

“Well,” Rusty peered around the room, realising that it didn’t really have much in way of storage - no wardrobes or anything. “I’ll set the boxes down on your bed. Uh, give you time to sort through your new stuff.”

And he sure did have a lot of new stuff. When Rusty had rocked up at the Warrens, Thumper had been absolutely draconian in what she gave him, sniffing about how he should’ve had the foresight to pack a runaway bag in his AC’s cockpit for his inevitable departure from the Vespers. Rusty had conceded the point, and he wasn’t too sour about it, but he couldn’t help but find some wry amusement at how Thumper had all but showered Raven in anything he could conceivably need. 

Must be those doe-eyes of his. No one was immune to his aura of sad vulnerability, not even tough little Thumper it seemed. 

Raven didn’t protest, so Rusty neatly set the boxes down on the bare mattress, unstacking them for good measure. Now unburdened, he flexed his bandaged hand to try and ease the dull throb of pain. The edge of the box had been pressing against his injury fairly hard, and it hadn’t been a light load either. 

The scuff of boots drew his attention, and Rusty glanced over to see Raven peering at his hand with a faint frown. Rusty couldn’t read his expression - he didn’t look regretful, as such, and Rusty could admit he deserved the bite for overstepping Raven’s boundaries, but he didn’t look overly happy or satisfied either. 

“You didn’t do that much damage,” Rusty said, holding his hand up and rotating it to show the back and palm. “This is just Uncle being careful. Would be bad if it got infected, so…”

Raven glanced away and fidgeted with his sleeve, tugging it and scratching at the inside with his fingernails loudly before he held out his hands hesitantly. Rusty stared blankly, not quite understanding what Raven was silently asking for, until Raven finally fixed his gaze on Rusty’s bandaged hand. 

Pointedly, Raven wiggled his fingers in a silent ‘give it’ gesture.

“My… hand?” Rusty asked, already extending it slowly. Raven didn’t respond, eyeing the hand like it was some sort of strange creature he was trying to figure out the mechanics of picking up. After a prolonged pause, Raven finally closed the space between them. His movements were slow, considering, and Rusty didn't stop him as he cradled his hand, the contact almost featherlight.

Raven’s hands were small, was Rusty's first inane thought, with delicate fingers and wrists that looked slim enough for Rusty to circle them completely with his forefinger and thumb. His skin was paler than Rusty’s, and it made the thin, pink scars tucked into the crevices of his finger joints and between his knuckles stand out starkly - surgically neat, yet oddly raw looking. 

But that wasn’t what snagged Rusty’s attention. Where the coat and jumper sleeves hitched up slightly, he glimpsed what looked like a tattoo on the inside of Raven’s left wrist: blocky and lined, like a barcode, with small lettering along the bottom. Too small for him to read at a glance. 

Gingerly, Raven prodded at the side of Rusty’s bandaged thumb. A dull, bruise-like pain flared, but Rusty didn’t flinch from it. He couldn’t help but notice how Raven’s fingernails were a little ragged, like he’d been biting them recently. A new habit, or an old one?

“...it’s fine,” Rusty murmured. There was a strange mood hanging over the both of them, and he was reluctant to break it, keeping his voice hushed. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Raven let out a soft exhale, and his gaze shifted from side to side, like he was searching for words he couldn’t say. He turned Rusty’s hand until it was palm up, and pressed his fingers against the thin layer of bandages there, very slowly and meticulously spelling: S-O-R-R-Y.

“For what?” Rusty huffed out a semi-laugh. “I deserved it. Don’t apologise for it.”

Raven just shook his head, a hint of frustration edging into his expression. He started to say something again (N-O-I-D-I-D-N-O) before he stopped. After a charged pause, he began to pull away. 

On impulse, and for reasons Rusty couldn’t explain to himself, he turned his hand and snagged Raven’s left one in a gentle grip of his own, loose enough that Raven could pull free easily if he wanted to. He didn’t. Raven just went still, a flash of scarlet as his gaze quickly snapped up before flitting away, his head tilting down fractionally. 

Rusty’s hand easily engulfed Raven’s, and carefully, like he was handling fragile glass, he mimicked what Raven had done to him, turning his hand until it was palm up. He could see the faint traces of veins through his pale skin criss-crossed with those surgical yet raw looking scars, and there, plain as day, in jet-black ink, was the tattoo on the inside of his wrist. 

He touched it gently with the pad of his thumb, and revised his earlier observation. It didn’t look like a barcode: it was one, a series of alternating black lines and dots that almost took up the entire narrow width of Raven’s wrist. A thin, diagonal scar was sliced through it, though, too neat to be an accidental injury, distorting whatever information it had once carried by bisecting it into clean halves. The letters underneath said: “A04-23C”.

“What’s this?” Rusty asked softly.

Raven didn't reply - how could he? His gaze was hidden beneath his eyelashes, his expression inscrutable, but when Rusty brushed his thumb over the barcode, feeling the raised ridge of that too precise scar, Raven trembled violently, a quiet noise catching in his throat. 

Rusty let him go immediately.

“Sorry,” he said, as Raven snatched his hand back and pressed it protectively against his stomach. “I shouldn’t’ve done that.”

Raven just exhaled loudly, crossing his arms in a way that hid his hands entirely from view. It looked awkward and uncomfortable, but Rusty got the message and held up his hands in a universal sign of surrender.

“I’ll keep my hands to myself,” he said easily. “Alright?”

Raven didn’t respond. He turned away from him and paced back and forth a few times before uncrossing his arms and taking out his communication device. Rusty was half-expecting to be told to get out, recognising that he might’ve crossed a boundary line again out of stupid impulse, but instead: 

«I want to see STALKER,» Raven said, completely out of the blue. 

Rusty blinked slowly. 

“...right now?” he asked. Raven nodded. “Um, okay. Sure, we can do that.”

Perplexed, but also tentatively pleased that he hadn’t pissed off Raven by randomly fondling his hand (what had he been thinking), Rusty started towards the door hesitantly. Raven immediately followed him like a little duckling. 

No words were shared as Rusty led the way to Hanger two. Raven walked just behind him to his left, and every time Rusty peeked back at him, the merc’s gaze was fixed firmly into the middle distance, his expression like stone. He really was hard to read and anticipate, but Rusty could sort of understand his sudden desire to see his AC. If he had spent a few hours separated from it in an unknown location, he’d be getting antsy too. 

The garage was as chaotic as usual, despite the late hour. Rusty could see a BAWS tetrapod being prepped for deployment in its moorings opposite STEEL HAZE ORTUS and STALKER. Likely support for Ziyi and Rokumonsen’s sortie that was… hm, probably within an hour or two, if they wanted to take advantage of the night. Forklifts carrying the tetrapod’s ammunition supply trundled past them, and everyone was too focused on their current task to notice Rusty and Raven climbing up the catwalk that led to their ACs. 

There was only one technician working on ORTUS, their nose buried in a datapad as they muttered to themselves. On STALKER, however, there was a veritable flock of technicians and engineers crawling all over the AC, hollering orders for specific tools or yelling out numbers or codes that Rusty didn’t understand. The whine of cutting tools or hiss of soldering irons mingled in a dull industrial roar, and this close, without a layer of ice and frozen snow obscuring it, Rusty realised just how damaged STALKER was. 

A lot of the armour had been removed, with the exception of the Core, where he could see two engineers dangling from rigging hitched onto the AC’s shoulder, pointing at a deep laser scar in the armour and shaking their heads. Another two technicians were perched on the shoulder above them, one carrying a box of heavy tools and the other a datapad. After a moment one of the engineers shouted up at them, and a technician lowered down the box while the other annotated something on the datapad. 

Further down, STALKER’s half-amputated leg had been removed completely, and a new leg was being very carefully reconnected by a pair of engineers and an industrial robotic arm. The leg’s metal was coated in bright white paint with a yellow stripe along the length, utterly jarring compared to the rest of STALKER’s sleek colour scheme, but Rusty supposed that colour-matching was a low priority when your AC only had one functioning leg. 

If this had been STEEL HAZE ORTUS, Rusty would’ve felt dismayed at seeing his AC in such a state. When he glanced at Raven, though, the merc’s face was impassive as usual, his brilliant Coral-eyes slowly taking in STALKER from the top of it banged up head to the bottom of its new white leg. 

“...it looks pretty beaten up,” Rusty said unthinkingly, before wincing at stating such an obvious fact. “Don’t worry, though, these guys are pretty good at fixing ACs with minimal resources.”

“Hah, thanks for the compliment.”

Rusty started slightly at the unexpected voice, and turned to see one of the lead technicians come walking over, datapad in hand. Hare, if he remembered rightly, a mousy-haired man who always looked like he was awake only because he’d drank enough coffee to kill a horse. 

“Honestly, it looks worse than it actually is,” Hare said - to Raven, who was still gazing at STALKER. “Aside from the leg, there wasn’t any serious damage to the internal components. Just some armour replacement, fixing a few scorched wirings and pistons, and STALKER will be as good as new in a week.”

“Well, that’s good. Isn’t it, buddy?” Rusty prompted gently, when Raven didn’t respond. The merc just made a quiet, ambiguous noise.

“Saying that…” Hare muttered, scratching his jaw. It was dark with stubble. “This is the first time we’ve worked on a Gen Four AC. We followed the protocols for the cerebellum spike sanitisation, but we weren’t sure how thorough to be, so we went ahead in disinfecting the whole cockpit. It’s a little time consuming, so if that’s something that doesn’t need to be done, let us know. We can speed up the turn-around then.”

As Rusty puzzled over what ‘cerebellum spike sanitisation’ meant, Raven finally acknowledged Hare’s existence. He said: «Whole cockpit needs sanitisation.»

“Ah, good to know,” Hare sighed. “As easy as Gen Fours have it with just plugging in and going, your post-mission maintenance is a lot more complicated.”

“What’s cerebellum spike sanitisation?” Rusty asked. 

“Well, it’s something fairly unique to the Gen Fours. Uncle just has the nervous system nodules,” Hare mimed plugging something into his arm. “You know, those little ports? Well, Gen Fours just have one, but it’s back here.” 

He tapped the back of his head. 

“It connects directly to the cerebellum, which then reroutes all movement commands to the AC itself, rather than the physical body’s nervous system. It’s something that’s only possible thanks to the Coral in their implants, from what I understand, but it’s rumoured the Gen Tens have something similar, just… remotely, and not as good.”

Rusty glanced at Raven, who had gone back to staring at STALKER, and leaned back slightly to peer at the back of his head. Raven’s curly hair was thick and messy enough that it wasn’t immediately obvious, but staring intently… yeah, Rusty could see something nestled at the base of Raven’s skull. The hair obscured it, though. 

“Right,” Rusty said, admittedly perturbed at the idea of sticking a spike directly into his brain. Gen Eights onwards all had remote connections to their ACs, to minimise ‘infection risks’ that open ports offered. He knew Uncle had to be very meticulous in his hygiene because of the various ports for his ‘nervous system nodules’, and honestly, Rusty would take the reduced performance of a late Gen augmentation than deal with those risks.

“But, because the cerebellum spike connects to such a delicate organ, it has to be disinfected aggressively after use,” Hare continued. “Synchro-port infections can be nasty. But, uh, don’t worry, we’ve got the means to ensure Raven’s cockpit is sterile after each use. I’ve made sure everyone assigned to STALKER will read up extensively on the Gen Four AC manual.”

«I want to sit in the cockpit.»

Rusty glanced at Raven, caught off guard by the sudden statement. Raven was still staring at STALKER, but there was a slight furrow between his brow - he looked almost anxious. 

“...now?” Hare asked. At Raven’s nod, he frowned. “I mean… you can, we’re not working on anything that’d make it unsafe so long as you don’t boot it up, but… we’d have to make it sterile again afterwards.” 

«I want to sit in the cockpit.»

Hare looked at Rusty a little helplessly, clearly asking for guidance, but Rusty could only offer him a shrug. It wasn’t as if Raven could go anywhere with the state STALKER was in, in case he had any delusions of running off into the frozen wasteland that surrounded the Warrens. In his periphery, he could see Raven start to anxiously scratch at his sleeves, his body taut with some restless sort of energy. It was clear that it wasn’t a case of wanting to sit in STALKER’s cockpit, but a sense of need.

“I’m not sure if Uncle would approve,” Hare finally said. “It’s very easy for you to just hijack the AC if you wanted…”

“We can keep the cockpit open and I’ll sit in the hatch,” Rusty offered immediately. “If Uncle finds out, just say I allowed it. I’ll take the scolding.”

“Well…” Hare sighed. “Uncle did say he agreed to work with us, so… alright, but please make sure he doesn’t boot up the systems. Some of the technicians are working on the generator, and I’d rather not have them be electrocuted.”

Rusty nodded, and Hare stepped aside to let them pass. He could feel the technician watching them as they headed towards STALKER’s cockpit hatch, but Rusty shrugged it off. He genuinely had no idea what was going through Raven’s mind, but if he wanted to sit in STALKER’s cockpit then… what was the harm? He kind of got it? Rusty used to sit in STEEL HAZE in total silence for hours at a time in the garage when he’d been with the Vespers, because it was the only time he got some peace and didn’t have to be fucking V.IV Rusty. Maybe it was like that for Raven. 

There was a little sign hastily taped onto the cockpit hatch when they reached it (“STERILE CORAL ENVIRONMENT! DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT PERMISSION FROM HEAD TECH!”), but Raven didn’t spare it a glance, quickly opening the hatch up and standing back as a hiss of pressurised air steamed out before the hatch lifted. 

Rusty was actually surprised at how quickly Raven clambered inside. Considering he moved at such a methodically slow pace in everything he did, it was almost comical with how rapidly he moved now. Rusty climbed in after him at a far more reasonable pace, settling himself in the midway point of the hatch - fully inside, but just outside the cockpit itself. 

From his vantage point he could see into it, and it was surprisingly spartan compared to ORTUS’s cockpit. Only three monitors, a very basic cockpit seat with three foot pedals, two joysticks and a condensed keypad on the arm - probably how he wrote his messages. Behind the cockpit seat though was a thick wall of electronics that Rusty didn’t have in his AC, all with blinking scarlet lights and emitting a strange, high-pitched ringing noise that made Rusty’s head itch. A thick cable jutted out of those odd computers and fed into a tube that was situated at the head of the cockpit seat. The tube was transparent, and within it he could see that the cable ended in a sharp, three pronged spike with jagged teeth. 

Was that a cerebellum spike? It looked like a torture device. 

Raven made himself at home in this odd cockpit, sitting in the cockpit seat and curling up like a child. Straps dangled from the seat - restraints? - but Raven plucked at one and began to fidget with it, curling it over his knuckles and idly tugging. Slowly, Rusty could see the pent up tension that had bunched up his shoulders slowly ease. 

It wasn’t silent by any means: the garage was loud outside, and the noise of machinery echoed through the Core’s thick armour and electronics - and there was that insistent ringing noise that Rusty knew he was going to find annoying after ten minutes or so - but for the first time, Raven actually looked comfortable. 

Rusty didn’t want to interrupt it, didn’t want to break this comfortable, soft lull between them. He watched Raven play with the seat strap, curled up on his side in a little ball, his face partly hidden behind the furred collar of his borrowed jacket, and his Coral-eyes glittering scarlet, shrouded by his dark eyelashes. He looked vulnerable, in an untouchable kind of way, yet Rusty felt his hands itch with the urge to reach out anyways. 

Couldn’t help but think about the feel of his wrist held gently in his grasp, and how warm his hand had been, how soft his skin was despite the scars. Could easily remember the phantom press of Raven’s fingers against his hand, spelling out ‘S-O-R-R-Y’ with such meticulous care and an enigmatic expression. Why did he trace that out on his hand, instead of inputting them in his communication device? Rusty couldn’t begin to guess.

“...you’re a strange one, Raven,” he found himself murmuring.

Raven looked at him - looked at him, right in the eyes, for a few heartbeats before he looked away. He didn’t respond or react beyond that, and Rusty let the conversation die there. 

V.IV Rusty was at a loss of how to continue from here. This was nothing like the shallow relationships he had to navigate and juggle as a Vesper, where an expertly delivered smile or a corporate laugh could smooth over whatever social faux pas he’d done. This was no greedy client or morally bankrupt co-worker he could fluff the ego of and charm like a forked silver tongue. This was not an easily defined, transactional relationship where both sides understood the shallowness of it. 

They were drawn to each other, even while mutually distrustful. Raven was burned by his lies, and Rusty feared his destructive potential. They should be enemies, logic dictated, but when did emotions ever follow logic? Rusty looked at Raven and felt a pull he couldn’t put into words or define. Raven was such a damaged person, he’d known that since the beginning, and it made him want to cup him in his hands and prise him open, to know what made him tick, what drove him to be as deadly as he was. Why was he fighting? What did he want? Why were his eyes so sorrowful and so far away? He wanted to know. He wanted to dig into him until his enigmatic secrets were splayed over his lap, until Raven bared everything to him. 

Rusty knew he was a little fucked up, though. 

As for why Raven was drawn to him, Rusty didn’t know. Loneliness, maybe? Or maybe Raven found him just as confounding, just as interesting. Or maybe Rusty was projecting, and he was the only one that craved a connection from someone dangerous enough to scorch him if he was careless. That was the thrill of it, though, wasn’t it? Raven was the only one who could keep up with him, had broken STEEL HAZE where most struggled to even scratch him. That type of power was…

Rusty sighed and closed his eyes, tipping his head back until it thumped lightly against the hatch wall. 

Uncle and Ziyi were right: he was getting too obsessed with Raven. But what was he to do about it? Cut himself off and stay away? He could do it, if he had to, but he didn’t want to, and it looked like Raven didn’t want it either. But he had to be careful - had to be mindful of every time he unthinkingly overstepped boundaries because some impulsive desire overcame him.

His hand still tingled from where Raven had cupped it between his own smaller ones. He curled it into a loose fist, forcing the memory out of his mind - tried to. It still lingered on the edges of his forethoughts, and it was pathetically easy to remember the ticklish sensation of Raven tracing out S-O-R-R-Y on his bandaged palm. The way he peeked up at him from beneath his dark eyelashes…

...

It seemed Raven was dangerous after all… but in a way that Rusty hadn’t anticipated. 

God. He was well out of his depth.

Chapter Text

C4-621 always felt safest inside his cockpit.

That was probably strange, considering his very first memory was dying in it, but at the same time it was also where he was born: the hull shattered open like a hatched egg, blinding lights and hazy smoke, and the embryonic fluid (blood) that dripped between his fingers and filled his lungs. It was a memory that starred in many of his nightmares, which made sense. Didn’t every living being endure the trauma of birth? C4-621 just had the misfortune to recall it. 

Yet despite that, he still felt his safest nestled within his AC’s Core. The acrid chemical smell of disinfectant mingled with engine oil, the gentle ringing of the Coral that thrummed through the circuitry, the way the metal shell would creak and sigh beneath its armour, and the little quirks of how the left pedal would squeak when depressed at a forty degree angle and the right joystick’s trigger button had to be depressed a little harder than the others… while others probably fondly remembered hazy childhood memories of their family or hometown, this was C4-621’s equivalent. 

He was born here, in an AC’s cockpit, the person he was now. It was all he had ever known. In a time where everything was so tumultuous, where he felt lost on what his future was and what will happen to him, the security of curling up in his cockpit, inhaling the chemical smell of disinfectant and listening to the thrum of circuitry, soothed him. It was familiar. It was safe.  

Eyes closed, curled up, listening to the muffled noise of maintenance on STALKER, he could almost pretend he was back at the garage with Walter. His handler usually grumbled about him making more work for the maintenance crew, but he never ordered C4-621 to stop crawling into STALKER whenever he felt upset or unsettled. He just gruffly told him to bring a blanket or dress warmly, as the Core wasn’t very well-insulated or heated when unpowered, and to not complain about back pain or stiff muscles if he fell asleep in there. 

Which C4-621 usually did. The bed Walter got him had been nice and novel, but he still wasn’t used to the big open space a ‘bedroom’ offered. Too exposed. Too wide. The ceiling was too tall. When his nightmares came for him, a mangled combination of his Deathday and Birthday, C4-621 would clamber into STALKER’s heart and sleep. 

…then Walter would inevitably wake him up, because there’d be a mission, or C4-621 was at risk of missing a scheduled meal time. He’d either send a message that his neural implants would receive, or hobble to the AC directly, bang on the hatch with his cane…

A part of him childishly waited for that to happen this time. 

But it didn’t. C4-621 felt safest here, and he could almost pretend it was the garage, but the noises were all wrong: the hatch was open when normally he had it closed, and he could sense Rusty sitting nearby, keeping watch silently - unobtrusive but still there. C4-621 didn’t even have his blanket, just Rusty’s jacket, and the furry collar tickled his jaw in a way that wasn’t familiar yet, so he was just very aware of it. Too aware to fall asleep. 

He didn’t want to leave, though. For the first time since stepping into the Warrens, C4-621 didn’t feel like he was minutes away from bursting out of his own skin. Ever since he had stepped foot into the Depths, a tension had been coiling tighter and tighter inside C4-621’s chest cavity, to the point where it began to manifest as physical pain deep in his belly, like that tension was clenching so hard it was going to shear his internal organs apart if it kept going. 

C4-621 was no stranger to pain. It genuinely didn’t bother him, he was so desensitised to it. But this was a different sort of pain, one accompanied with a shortness of breath and a restless energy that made him want to claw himself out of his body. His minor confrontation with Rusty had just been a final nail in the coffin, really. The ‘talk’, the contact- why did C4-621 apologise for the bite? Why did he touch him? He didn’t know. His mind felt like it was taking increasingly erratic decisions as the hours grinded on. 

Even in his half-dozing state, C4-621’s mind veered wildly back to that moment in his cell. Rusty’s large hand cradling his, incredibly warm, and that pressure against Asset 04’s now defunct identification tag. C4-621 remembered them cutting the scalpel across the tag, the brief, idle discussion on just removing the skin entirely. 

(“No, it’s too much effort. The chip’s been removed, so it’s not as if his augmentation schematics can be copied…”

“Unless he ends up on an autopsy table.”

“Good luck with that. His denial protocols will ensure that won’t ever happen.”)

Rusty’s touch had been very gentle. Not like the scalpel. C4-621’s mind still made the irrational association anyway, the gentle stroke of the thumb wrenching forth the memory of that blade splitting open the skin, cutting the umbilical thread between Asset 04 and the nameless Gen Four put up for auction- 

Irrational. 

But that moment was when C4-621 could feel all that pressure and stomach pains and Something Else just start to rear its ugly head, fangs bared. He knew that- he just had to go to STALKER. To the safest place on Rubicon, and curl up and breathe and pretend he’s in the garage, that in a few hours Walter will wake him up with “I’ve got a job for you, 621.”

But of course that won’t happen. Curling up in STALKER’s cockpit won’t magically fix everything. Rusty was sitting right there, the wrong noises filtered through the open hatch, C4-621 felt slightly nauseous despite his attempts to sleep, and there was a very unpleasant, prickling pressure squashing up against the back of his eyes and in his throat. He didn’t recognise it. 

…I think that’s what humans feel when they want to cry, Raven. 

Irrational. There was nothing to cry about, and the action wouldn’t solve any of his issues. 

…

Ayre’s sigh was almost a little mournful, but she said nothing. She didn’t leave though - as much as Ayre could leave. There were times where her presence felt a little distant, stretched almost, as her focus went beyond C4-621’s immediate vicinity. This was fine, he didn’t want her to feel chained to him in any way, but this time her presence was very there. It was a warm weight, and made the buzzing in his head feel less sharp and uncomfortable. She made him feel better, just by being there. 

I’m glad. I hear closeness can help with emotional pain, but this is all I can do for you…

C4-621 had heard the same, but he knew it probably meant things such as physical touch. Like Rusty holding his hand - had that helped with his emotional pain? It just made him feel raw. It hadn’t been entirely unpleasant, though. Before Rusty had touched his old identification tag, C4-621 had thought it felt oddly nice. He hadn’t realised how much bigger Rusty’s hands were. 

He opened his eyes a sliver, and shifted his gaze downwards. He was curled up, so the motion of his hands was slightly concealed as he peered down at them, studying how slim and pale they were. The scars stood out vividly, and it was obvious he had been biting his nails and the skin around them. He thought they looked quite ugly, in all honesty. 

Rusty’s hand had been nice - the palm had been bandaged up, but his nails had been very neat. Surprisingly neat, like he manicured them often. He had callouses too, but they hadn’t been overly rough, though maybe his skin had been a bit too dry, but that could’ve been the chill. His grip had been exceedingly gentle… almost reassuring…

C4-621 ran the memory of Rusty’s hand cupping his own a few times through his mind, and couldn’t decide if that closeness had comforted him or confused him. The touch to his wrist had tainted it. 

Raven. I want to ask you something. It’s about… your time as Asset 04.

C4-621 felt a knee-jerk sensation of dread, prompting Ayre to hastily add: 

It’s alright if you don’t want to discuss it. From what I can tell, it was a deeply traumatising time for you. But… I’m just concerned that…

He waited, but after a prolonged pause Ayre simply sighed. 

No, it’s not important. I just… want you to know that I’ll support you, in anything. If you ever need to talk about something, or discuss your feelings, I’ll be here for you, Raven.

C4-621 understood the invitation for what it was, but he wasn’t in the right space, mentally, to wade into that figurative nuclear minefield. His time as Asset 04… he both missed it intently and was viscerally glad for the mission that had resulted in his ‘discharge’. He didn’t have to think as Asset 04, he didn’t have to feel complicated things or exist as a person. He was simply Asset 04, and he was very good at mentally distancing himself whenever things became difficult. Just pretend it was happening to someone else very far away, and that you were just an absent spectator. That technique hadn’t failed C4-621 yet. 

But it’s not very healthy… or sustainable.

No… it wasn’t working all that well here on Rubicon. C4-621 had to exist as a person - to an extent - and had to think for himself, to adjust to everyone suddenly talking to him like he had the power to make his own decisions without a higher authority dictating what it was. There were so many assumptions made, so many unspoken, silent rules to navigating conversations with other people who had lived their entire lives as people. C4-621 couldn’t help but feel like an alien, and he was sure that those like Rusty thought the same about him. 

A sudden, dull thmp of a boot heel thudding against steel drew C4-621’s attention - and reminded him that he wasn’t alone. As he stayed curled up in his cockpit seat, feigning sleep, Rusty had sat in total silence in the hatch. So silently that C4-621 actually forgot that he was there for a good few minutes. 

“V.IV Rus- uh, I mean, Rusty here,” his voice rumbled, a little quieter than usual, but still a little loud in the enclosed space of the cockpit. There was a pause where C4-621 didn’t hear anything before Rusty replied: “Yeah, he’s in there now. He’s just sleeping, I think.”

He’s communicating with Flatwell. Interestingly, they’re using their neural implants as pseudo-communication devices. It seems that they can remotely connect to the Warren’s intranet with them, though they can’t connect with any other communication device except each other’s implants. Theoretically, you can be added to the intranet to gain the same communication capabilities, though you wouldn’t be able to ‘talk’. We could use it to monitor their private calls covertly, though…

Ayre’s expert hacking and monitoring never failed to awe him. 

Hah, thank you, Raven.

“-right now?” Rusty asked, drawing C4-621’s attention back to his conversation. “I thought Ziyi and Rokumonsen were… I see. I’m surprised they’re deploying those so quickly. Okay. I’ll get prepped for departure to act as support. Raven can-”

A beat. 

“...okay, I understand, Uncle. I’ll send him back to his room.”

Please don’t bite him this time, Raven.

“Uh, Raven?” Rusty pitched his voice a little louder, and C4-621 heard him shift his weight… before what felt like the heel of his boot pushed against his knee. “Buddy? You awake there?”

“....mmmgnh,” C4-621 responded reluctantly, the noise more akin to the gurgling croak of a dying frog than anything close to human. He stifled a cough from the tickle it caused in his throat, and reluctantly uncurled from his protective ball to sit up properly. 

Rusty lowered his leg. With the light from the garage streaming through the hatch, and C4-621’s vision blurry from exhaustion, his expression was difficult to make out. 

“Been called up for a job,” Rusty said, and when C4-621 instinctively perked at those magic words, added: “Me, I mean. So, I can’t watch you in here, buddy. Uncle doesn’t trust you to hang around in your AC unsupervised.” 

C4-621 felt disappointed, but wasn’t surprised. He nodded and pushed himself up from his seat. Rusty left the hatch, back out into the garage. C4-621 reluctantly followed him, feeling oddly sluggish in a way that went beyond mere exhaustion. He felt like his generator was out of fuel…

You have low blood sugar.

Oh. Right. That made sense. While Thumper had given him some rations several hours ago, they had been fairly light compared to the calorie intensive diet his augmentations required of him. The last time he had a proper meal was before Institute City, which had been almost… a day and a half ago? Too long. 

C4-621 felt the instinctive surge of anxiety at missing several scheduled meal timings. Walter had been very strict on him meeting them. 

But he set aside that concern for now. He succeeded in clambering out of his AC, sluggish or not, and squinted against the bright lights of the garage. There was a klaxon alarm silently flashing in reds and yellows, and across the way he could see the BAWs tetrapod from earlier being moved from its moorings towards the hanger doors. 

“This is where we part ways for now, buddy,” Rusty said, and C4-621 looked away from the tetrapod to stare at Rusty’s left hip instead. “My job’ll take me a day or so to finish, but I’m sure you’re sick of me loitering considering… well.”

It was a rare note of self-deprecation that coloured Rusty’s voice, and in his periphery C4-621 could see him lift an arm to rub the back of his neck. C4-621 raised his head fractionally, snatching a quick peek of Rusty’s face from beneath his thick eyelashes. His expression was wry, but hard to read. 

But C4-621 was never any good at reading people.   

He slipped out his communication device from his pocket to say: «Good luck on your job. Don’t die.»

For some reason, Rusty laughed at his earnest well-wishing. “I’ll try not to. But, I don’t think anyone out there can keep up with me in STEEL HAZE ORTUS. Well, except you.”

Rusty’s voice lowered slightly, became a little deeper and almost… something. C4-621 turned his gaze to ORTUS, situated in its moorings beside the ruined frame of STALKER. He hadn’t really taken it in the first time, but it was different to STEEL HAZE: more boxier looking, the helmet shaped to be more lupine… it seemed like it’d be heavier and less agile than STEEL HAZE, but C4-621 knew better than to judge an AC at first look. 

“...” He was curious about one thing, though: «What does ORTUS mean?»

“Dawn,” Rusty murmured. “Sunrise. Daybreak… new beginnings.”

C4-621 thought back to the photographs on Rusty’s phone, with the myriad of sunrises and great open skies, free of low-orbiting satellites or platforms that tended to litter the landscape of most colonised worlds. He felt like he could identify the expression on Rusty’s face now: wistfulness, a longing for something that’d be forever out of reach.

«I see. I prefer twilight, myself, so I would have gone with STEEL HAZE DUSK.»

There was a pause, almost startled, before Rusty laughed again - this one sounded a lot more genuine than the other laugh, a lot deeper and raspier. 

“I’ve already done that, buddy,” he chuckled. C4-621 tilted his head in an unspoken question, but Rusty continued to speak: “But anyway, I have to go. You can make your way back to your room alright?”

«Yes,» C4-621 said. 

“Okay…” Rusty hesitated, his gaze lingering on him before he finally turned away with a casual wave of his hand. “See you later, buddy.”

C4-621 watched him walk the short distance to ORTUS, where a small gaggle of technicians were already congregated near the AC, likely for the pre-deployment checks. C4-621 turned his head, and saw that the tetrapod was already leaving the hangar for its own mission. 

Meanwhile, C4-621 didn’t have a job to do. He felt uncomfortably useless.

Let’s find some food for you. We should re-establish your eating schedule as quickly as possible, before you start fainting from hypoglycemia. 

Yes, that was probably wise. C4-621 cast one last look over his shoulder, but not long enough to really glimpse Rusty, before heading back down the catwalk. He had no idea where he was going to get food, but he (Ayre) remembered the route to the stores.

It was time to find the residential expert. 

“You’re back,” Thumper deadpanned. 

«Yes,» C4-621 said. 

Thumper leaned against the storeroom door she had been in the middle of locking, looking towards the ceiling as if beseeching a higher power for strength. She recovered quickly, however, finishing up in locking the door and turning to him with a stern frown. 

“Stores is locked for the next few hours, so if I forgot t’give ya summin’-”

«Food. I don’t know where to get food from.»

Thumper stopped.

“Oh.” Her eyes widened and, suddenly enough that C4-621 jumped slightly, slapped her hand against her forehead loudly. “Oh! Fuck, I knew I forgot summin’ when I sent ya on yer way! Yer ration book…!”

She hastily unlocked the door and vanished inside the storeroom, leaving C4-621 awkwardly standing there in mild confusion. He didn’t have to wait for long, however, as Thumper returned just as chaotically as she left, brandishing a small booklet with a dull brown cover. It looked like it was made out of paper just stapled together in the form of a book. 

“Here we are!” She abruptly snatched it back before C4-621 to take it. “No, no, wait, I need to add summin’...” 

She opened up the booklet, fished out a pen from one of her pockets, and scribbled on the inside of the cover next to the big bold letters that said ‘Allergies’: ‘SOFT FOODS ONLY!!!! THROAT INJURY (PERM)!’

“There ya go,” she said, tucking her pen away and holding out the booklet. C4-621 waited for a few heartbeats before accepting it and held it uncertainly between forefinger and thumb. “That’s yer ticket to gettin’ food around ‘ere.”

I see. So this is how they manage their food stores. Let’s hope they’ll be able to meet your calorie intake with little issue. 

“Now, a quick crash course in the ol’ ration book before I slither off t’bed,” Thumper said. “‘Cuz, no offence, but I’ve been awake for like, almost twenty hours and I need sleep like the normal baseline human that I am.”

She pointed at the booklet. “Ya go to the canteen and give it to the cook on duty. They ‘ave a looksee and mark down what time and day ya got food, and what ya given. Everyone’s on strict rations ‘ere, even Uncle, so yer only allowed three meals a day, with one dessert every week. S’like the only bit of culinary morale we get around here, but militant beggars can’t be choosers ‘ere.”

So, there was some organisation to this, then. It wasn’t quite the same as the schedule Walter had, where he would inform C4-621 when it was time to eat and had colour-coded food-boxes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so C4-621 remembered which one was which. C4-621 never had to actively remember his timings or what to eat and when - Walter had done all of that for him. If left to his own devices, C4-621 would simply forget.  

Not that that was something he did intentionally, but his inability to feel hunger combined with how easily he let time simply drift past him, meant that it was incredibly easy for him to not eat for days at a time unless prompted (or his body reminded him via fainting spells). Ayre tried her best to remind him, but being an entity that didn’t require physical food, she also forgot more often than not. 

“Yer makin’ a face,” Thumper said shrewdly. “C’mon, let’s hear it. Yer gonna tell me summin’ concernin’ or whatever, aren’t’cha?”

It’d be wise to inform them of your disability, Raven. I can foresee us both forgetting proper meal scheduling, without an external reminder…

Sighing, C4-621 conceded the point, and said: «I need a meal schedule.»

Thumper visibly braced herself before asking: “Why.”

«I can’t feel hunger, so I don’t know when I should eat. But I am very susceptible to hypoglycemia if I don’t eat regularly. I need a schedule to avoid that.»

Thumper pressed her hands together and held them close to her mouth, staring intently at him. C4-621 studiously ignored her piercing stare, trying not to fidget overly much. 

“You diabetic?” she finally asked. 

«No. I have permanent brain damage and my augmentations are calorie intensive.»

“Brain damage,” Thumper repeated. “Brain damage. That explains a lot about you, good lord. Okay. Um, let’s see.”

She put her hands on her hips and frowned at the floor. C4-621 could practically hear the gears in her head spin wildly as she considered this problem he had set at her feet. He wondered if he should suggest what Walter did with him, but Walter never had to ration food or the like. He always got regular food supply drops from some unknown intermediary…

He decided to try anyway: «My previous handler had a strict schedule, and colour-coded the daily food boxes so I knew which one to eat at what time. Red was ‘breakfast’ at 0800 Earth Time GMT, for example.»

“Maybe we can try summin’ like that,” Thumper said slowly. “I dunno, it sounds like summin’ you’d have to bring up with Uncle, but he’s busy overseein’ a sortie right now. Hmm… how ‘bout you just get summin’ t’eat now, and when Uncle’s finished, go see ‘im about it, eh?”

«Okay.»

“I’ll remind ya if I wake up and ya still haven’t spoken to ‘im,” Thumper said. “Now, lemme give ya directions to the canteen…”

She delivered rather rapidfire directions that C4-621 didn’t retain at all, but she genuinely did seem tired and had done a lot for C4-621 already, so he simply nodded when she asked if he got all of that, and watched her leave as he pondered how the Liberation Front was so organised yet haphazard about it. 

He didn’t understand how so many people were happy to leave him to his own devices. Walter had designated an area for him to wait around in if he didn’t want to sleep, and also assigned him enrichment tasks if there were no missions. Yet here, Flatwell told him he had to wait a week before STALKER was repaired but gave him no other tasking. No other direction? What was C4-621 meant to do? A week was a very long time. Obscenely long. C4-621 could complete at least ten missions comfortably within a week. 

Thinking about it made him anxious, though it was hard for him to fully define the source of it. He had no direction beyond ‘wait a week’. He was left to his own devices with an expectation that he could manage himself fine, like he was a fully functioning human being who understood that level of freedom. Walter had given him freedom in easily digestible chunks. To suddenly have all of it at once made him feel… it wasn’t… he didn’t know what to do. 

And if you didn’t know what to do, then that meant mistakes were more easily made, and mistakes were unforgivable if you were C4-621 (Asset 04). He had been excellent with Walter - not a single mission-failure to his name, except for the STRIDER mission but that an outlier and occurred due to outside influences sabotaging it. But as Asset 04 it had been drilled into him that failure was unacceptable. Ignorance was never an excuse. Failure was squarely his fault, no matter the circumstances. He was meant to be perfect. He had to be perfect. Always. Perfect.

C4-621 wanted to return to STALKER’s cockpit, where things were familiar and made more sense. He scratched anxiously at his arms, hearing his bitten nails loudly scrape over the jacket’s fabric, feeling paralysed with indecision. Rusty said he wasn’t allowed to return to STALKER without supervision, but he was… he was really…  

Raven, it’s okay. You’re okay. 

Nothing felt okay right now. He just- desperately wanted Walter. He represented safe stability and certainty, and without him he felt horribly unmoored, especially now that he was standing alone, in the middle of a facility he was totally unfamiliar with, filled with strangers he didn’t know at all - including Rusty, who hadn’t been who he thought he was all along. The more he thought about it the more C4-621 felt sick from nerves.

…alright. I understand. Then… 

Ayre paused, as if taking a figurative breath, and when she next spoke, she was more brusque, firm, almost like:

Listen up, 621. Take a moment to breathe and focus on our immediate objectives: food. We can think about what comes after once we’ve achieved that. 

Almost like Walter, even if the stiff tone didn’t quite match her voice. But something about it still managed to ease that tightening knot squeezing in C4-621’s stomach all the same. He obeyed the command and breathed slowly, feeling his suddenly racing heart calm fractionally. Take a moment to breathe: done. Now, to focus on his immediate objectives: food.

First objective: find the canteen. Second objective: obtain food. Third objective: eat it. 

Yes, exactly. Now, commence mission: turn left and head down the corridor. 

C4-621 obeyed, calmed by the comforting monotony of mindlessly following orders. Ayre directed him through the facility unerringly, having retained Thumper’s directions better than himself - or, more likely, had already mapped the facility by intruding on their networks. He put his trust in her wholly on letting her lead him, and eventually he ended up in a larger than usual room with one side taken up by a counter, and the other a series of tables with benches. 

First objective achieved. Now, to acquire food: 621, approach the counter. 

C4-621 approached the counter. He noticed as he walked over how empty the whole place was, and that the counter was manned by a single person sat on a chair, tapping away on a smartphone. As C4-621 came closer, he could hear tinny, upbeat music along with chiming sound effects from it, and the person - a very young looking man who seemed to be on the cusp of adulthood - was focused so intently on the screen C4-621 stood there for a solid six minutes before they finally noticed him. 

Well, ‘noticed him’. More like they glanced up briefly and yelped in surprise, dropping their phone in the process. 

“Oh- fuck- shit, sorry! Sorry, um, please don’t tell Uncle I was playing on my phone!” the young man stammered, giving for his phone and clutching it tight to his chest as he leapt up to his feet. He was gangly, in a newborn foal kind of way, with large blue eyes and floppy blond hair. C4-621 scanned him up and down, deciding he wasn’t overly threatening, and focused his gaze on the counter. 

“It’s just- it’s the dead of night, man! Only the grease monkeys come in at random hours, and no one else is on shift, so I think it should be fine! I mean, I know I’m technically on duty, but-”

Raven… please get him to stop talking. 

C4-621 wordlessly held out his ration booklet. 

“-um,” the young man stopped talking, but he also didn’t take the booklet. “Oh, you’re here for food? Uh, okay. Hey- I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before. You new here? From Belius?”

Gaze still glued onto the counter, C4-621 nodded. He felt a tug against the ration booklet, and obediently released it. 

“Oh… you’re a shy one, huh?” The young man’s voice was faintly sympathetic, followed by the rustle of paper. “Oh, not shy. Throat injury… damn. Um, I think there may be something leftover from dinner. How’re you with mealworm soup?”

That sounds… delightful. 

C4-621 nodded. 

“Good, ‘cuz it’s all we’ve got for soft foods, really. I’ll have to heat it up so, um, you know. Take a seat. I’ll bring it over. One sec…”

On the counter, the young man set the ration booklet down and annotated on the first page: ‘late evening dinner, 0123CF, mealworm soup (two bowls due to dietary restrictions (no solids!!)).’

“I’ll give you two bowls, since just one won’t really fill you up, and you can’t have the usual bread with it,” the young man said, handing the ration booklet back. “But it’d be lame to have a cold second bowl, so when you finish your first, let me know and I’ll heat up the second.”

C4-621 nodded and pocketed his booklet. After a brief moment of hesitation, he remembered the hand signs to say ‘thank you’, having to focus very carefully on making the correct movements. He didn’t know if the young man understood, but he got a “you’re welcome” in response, so deemed it a good job well done and turned away. 

He sat down on the table where he had his back to the wall and could see the entire room from beneath his eyelashes, if he wanted to. The benches had no back, so he leaned on his elbows instead, letting his hands rest flat against the table as he stared dead ahead, keeping his thoughts quiet and unmoving, like the frozen surface of a lake. 

In the garage, he would be able to get his colour-coded meal box and eat in his designated rest room. Walter had set up a television in there, and there were pre-recorded documentaries loaded up on a harddrive he had dug up from somewhere. They were all from a television channel called ‘Animal Planet’. Before Institute City, C4-621 had watched one documentary about a pack of wolves that had lived somewhere called ‘Yellowstone’, but he never got to finish it. He’ll probably never finish it now. 

We might be able to. I’m sure we can find another copy somewhere.

But it wouldn’t be the same. 

It was exhausting, having his mood pinball between dullness and deep, intense anxiety. He rubbed his temples, feeling that migraine that had been sufficiently soothed by the brief nap start to claw back with a vengeance. It was all these bright lights… 

Combined with your stress, lack of sleep, dehydration and hunger… 

Right… that likely wasn’t helping either. 

After you eat, you should try to sleep again. You didn’t really get a lot of time to rest.

Another objective added. C4-621 mentally tallied it, and felt like this would be enough to eliminate a quarter of a day from the week that loomed over him like an incoming sandstorm. After that, Flatwell may be done with managing the sortie, and C4-621 can talk to him about a meal schedule, which may take up to an hour, and then… then… 

We’ll figure that out later, Raven. Just focus on your current objective.

Waiting for food. 

That’s right. 

C4-621 obediently let his thoughts settle into something flat and unthinking, staring blankly into the distance. He wasn’t sure how long he sat like that, but he only stirred out of it when the young man came over with a steaming bowl and spoon. 

“I’d say ‘enjoy’, but there’s not much you can do about mealworm soup,” he said apologetically, setting the bowl down. “Here. Just come back up to the counter when you’re done, and I’ll heat up a second for you.”

C4-621 nodded and waited until the young man returned to the counter before picking up the spoon. He inspected it for cleanliness, admittedly very picky over shared utensils, before turning his attention to the soup. It looked thick and goopy, and had a faint ammonia smell about it. Ayre somehow gave off the impression of a full-bodied cringe. 

That looks… a lot different to the soup Walter gets you. 

Walter spoiled him with decent rations, that’s why. 

C4-621 had eaten worse, anyways. At the auction house, the merchandise had been fed with cheap rations that ensured they wouldn’t starve to death, and before that Asset 04 had been fed a highly regimented ‘nutrient paste’ that met his calorie count but somehow lacked any and all taste - and was like eating toothpaste in terms of consistency. As he boldly tried a spoonful of mealworm soup, he could at least say this had some form of taste.

A very… pungent taste. It took some effort to swallow it, and it made his tongue tingle weirdly. He scrunched up his nose. 

I suppose if it’s all we have on offer, then we can't really complain.

At least it had the same texture as soup, albeit very thick soup. 

Stoically, C4-621 ate the entire bowl, and once finished, went to the counter to get another one, where he forced his way through that too. By the end he felt uncomfortably full and mildly nauseous, with the worst aftertaste he’d ever known lingering in his mouth. Fortunately, the young man took pity on him and offered him some juice to wash it away, but even then the pungent taste lingered. 

This was the first time he’d ever eaten mealworm, and also the first time he could say confidently that he had a negative food preference. He might actually endure the pain of choking down solids if it meant avoiding tasting that again. 

Another thing to talk to Flatwell about, I suppose. But for now, let’s go to bed. 

C4-621 obeyed, tiredly ticking off ‘obtained food and eaten it’ from his list of objectives in his mental list. He trudged through those brightly lit corridors of the Warrens back to his cell, his feet moving on autopilot as Ayre murmured directions, and once more marvelled at how time seemed so terrifyingly vast when he was given a week of nothing to do. 

A week. Seven whole days. 

We’re here.

A hundred and sixty eight hours. Ten thousand and eighty minutes. 

We’re here, Raven. 

Six hundred and four thousand and eight hundred seconds.

621. We’ve arrived at your next objective.

C4-621 blinked slowly, realising he was standing in front of his cell door. He had no recollection of arriving. Ayre gently did the mental equivalent of prodding him, and he turned to the keypad, struggling to recall the code. His brain just kept chewing over six hundred and four thousand and eight hundred repeatedly, crowding out any other kind of numbers. He felt a sudden surge of frustration at himself, running a hand through his hair and pulling at it briefly.

What did Rusty say? Three times two…take away one, equals five…?

C4-621 slowly inputted ‘3615’ and slumped in relief when the door unlocked. 

…well done, Raven. 

He stepped inside and turned on the lights, only to slump even further when he saw the two boxes of kit on his bed. He’d forgotten entirely about that. He scrubbed at his face, knowing he could just crawl under the bed and ignore it for later, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t, now that he was directly looking at them. He’ll have to unbox it and organise it first. He wouldn’t be able to relax, otherwise. 

He wanted to go back to STALKER. He wanted to go on a mission where he didn't have to worry about organising his own meal timings or belongings he never wanted to have or what to do with six hundred and four thousand and eight hundred uninterrupted seconds of his life-!

It’s alright. It's alright, Raven. We don’t need to organise all of the contents right now. Just empty the boxes and separate them into clothes and items.

C4-621 was acutely aware of how loud and unsteady his breathing was, his throat burning from what felt like an uncomfortable lump lodged in there, but he listened to Ayre and went over to the boxes, tipping out their contents onto the bare mattress. Ayre very gently and methodically helped him sort out the mess into two neat piles, and identified the more important items: the toiletries and a set of pyjamas. By this point his breathing had steadied into something more regular, and that thorny, hard to define emotion that had crowded against the base of his throat eased enough so he didn’t feel like he was on the verge of choking. 

There we go, well done. Now, let’s get ready for bed. We can finish this tomorrow, after your talk with Flatwell. 

Objectives updated. C4-621 went through the motions of pre-sleep preparations. Brushing his teeth thankfully did get rid of the mealworm aftertaste, and the pyjamas that Thumper had allocated him were very soft and warm on the inside, so he relegated Rusty’s jacket to padding out his pillows, pressing his face into the snarling wolf emblem that took up the entire back when he settled himself under his safe spot under the bed. 

It smelled a little like exhaust fumes and stale sweat. It reminded C4-621 of his AC cockpit, and he felt the painfully tight knot in his stomach loosen a little at the comforting familiarity. He hugged Rusty’s jacket and the pillow it was wrapped around closer to himself, inhaling deep as he closed his eyes.

…it’ll do.

Rest well, Raven. Maybe things will seem better when you wake up. 

He doubted it, but he hoped so too. He was barely partway into day one of seven and already felt like he was bursting apart of the seams. But, C4-621 was adaptable. He had to be to live this long. He’ll adjust, eventually, maybe after making a mistake or two and being punished for it, but he’ll adjust. He was a survivor at heart, even if he never achieved perfection like Asset 04’s masters had wanted, but he’ll try his best to survive this too, to the best of his ability. 

There were just too many fires his brain was trying to put out. He’d never been given so much freedom before, with a distinct lack of constant oversight. How did normal people endure this day-to-day? How did Rusty? His brain felt like it was melting. 

…rest, 621. 

Yes, Handler. 

…

Chapter Text

The closest Arquebus outpost to the Warrens was the crumbled remains of an oil refinery, its empty tankers half-melted and derelict from when the Fires had ignited the fuel within. From a distance, it resembled a row of jagged, uneven teeth on the horizon of the ice fields, collapsed piping and metal crossbeams jutting up from the snow, the dark metal long since frosted over by decades of relentless blizzards.

It was impossible to restore it to its former purpose, but Arquebus had moved in all the same, rearranging the debris as well as they could to make a rudimentary perimeter and establish themselves a basic patrol base. Due to how far north it was from Watchpoint Alpha, the base was lightly defended, anticipated to be a mere pit stop for patrolling MTs and to ensure the ‘Rubiconian rabble’ didn’t get any smart ideas of storming the Watchpoint. It had been set up in the lead-up to the Ice Worm mission, and by the time Arquebus had fully plumbed the Depths, the base was fairly well-established. 

Enough so that it had regular supply drops. 

The patrol base was unusually active that evening, though. As Rokumonsen observed the base from a distant ridgeline, he had counted no less than four different patrols leaving within an hour of each other - none of them had returned, and one had come dangerously close to his own concealed position. 

They were searching for something - and Rokumonsen had a fairly good idea on what it was. 

But Raven was secured within the Warrens, and these patrols won’t travel far enough to discover the Liberation Front’s main base of operations in this region. So, he merely logged the departures and the worrying arrivals, noting that while several LCs had left the base, a menacing HC had arrived less than an hour ago, standing guard in the centre of the base. 

When Flatwell had given him and Ziyi this mission, it had been under the assumption that they would be raiding a lightly defended patrol base mere hours after they had their supply drop. Instead, it was a hive of activity, and with plenty of reinforcements within recall distance. Rokumonsen’s cautious nature wanted to call off the operation, but Flatwell was adamant: they needed the supplies. They had already been overly cautious when the corporations were fighting with the PCA, and their meagre stores had paid the price for it. 

Still, Flatwell had conceded to sending Rusty on this mission. They were just waiting for his belated arrival - as V.IV Rusty was considered KIA, a deception Flatwell was keen to maintain for the moment, ORTUS couldn’t flagrantly display Rusty’s emblem, thus it needing to be quickly covered up, nor could he speak over comms at risk of interception. Some… discretion was required here.

As Rokumonsen waited, he couldn’t help but ponder this whole strange situation. The LCs and HCs were swiftly entered into service by Arquebus after they had seized the PCA’s suppression fleet - too swiftly. It was obvious that they had simply stolen the mechs wholesale from the PCA and installed their own pilots, but surely that was a risk? Those pilots likely had no idea how to operate those MTs to their full capabilities, especially the HCs which had been experimental even by the PCA’s standards. 

Arquebus had always been the cautious of the two corporations, so why this sudden recklessness? Were they arrogant due to their recent victories over the PCA and Balam? Or were they that eager to capture Raven? The independent mercenary was rather extraordinary, Rokumonsen could admit, having witnessed several of his battles on Flatwell’s orders, but… all this effort, for one AC pilot?

It was all very peculiar, in his opinion. 

He was drawn from his thoughts when his HUD mounted on his helmet chirped, announcing an incoming call from short-range communications. Already knowing who it was, he let his tone become a little scolding as he responded: “Ziyi, you know we’re to communicate only when vital.”

“This is vital: how long until Ortus gets here?” Ziyi asked grumpily. “We’ve been squatting in this snow drift for over an hour and YUE YU is starting to freeze up. Pretty sure the tetrapod is an icecube by now.”

SHINOBI was suffering the same. Rokumonsen kept having to gently pump the boosters to keep the AC’s overall temperature up. 

“He’s en-route,” Rokumonsen said. He amplified SHINOBI’s ocular feeds when he noticed fresh movement within the base. An incoming transporter helicopter, dropping off six new MTs. They congregated around the HC, before three split off, heading towards one of the base’s entrances. Standing guard. 

“He better hurry up… watching these corporate dogs strut around like they own the place makes my blood boil,” Ziyi hissed. “Why’re so many up here? They should all be running around in that underground city like the rats they are.”

“Raven, I assume.” Rokumonsen flagged the three guard MTs and sent their locations to Ziyi. “From what Middle Flatwell has gathered, they are keen to claim that warrior for themselves. What nefarious purpose they have planned for him, I can’t say.”

“Probably hoping to slap a collar on him and make him their new attack dog, like he wasn’t one of theirs already.” Ziyi made a derisive noise. “Typical corporations. It’s in their blood to be backstabbing oppressors. Because they got greedy, they scared Raven off. Well, their loss is our gain, I suppose.”

Rokumonsen frowned. That was a good point. Raven had been on Arquebus’s payroll when exploring the Depths and discovered Institute City. What had happened there wasn’t very well known to the Liberation Front - they had only gained disjointed snippets of communication excerpts during a hack - but it was widely understood that for whatever reason, V.II Snail of the Vespers had attempted to capture Raven alive on Arquebus HQ’s orders without any warning. 

‘Subject’, Snail had called him. Subject for what? His demented Factory?

Whatever it was, it had been enough for Arquebus to risk destroying their working relationship with Raven. Maybe they felt it acceptable, since the Coral Convergence had been found. Did they really need to keep a powerful mercenary like that roaming around? It wasn’t as if Raven made it a secret that he took Liberation Front jobs, and Rusty had admitted that his ill-fated battle against the mercenary had been Arquebus’s attempts to be rid of them both. 

Still, this response was rather excessive for one independent mercenary… was there more to it?

A ping, and Rokumon refocused when SHINOBI’s IFF systems registered an incoming friendly: ORTUS. He sent an acknowledgement ping back, and watched on his HUD as the signal rapidly approached his position before slowing down once it was close enough. 

“Hope I didn’t keep you guys waiting for too long,” Rusty piped over the comms. “Rokumonsen, Ziyi and… sorry, not sure who the tetrapod pilot is.”

“Vinegar,” the tetrapod’s pilot muttered. They were a quiet one, but also one of their most skilled tetrapod MT pilots. They were here to bring the heavy firepower on the team, as the tetrapod was mounted with a heavy cannon and a ten-cell missile launcher, as well as a pulse blade and gatling gun. It meant that the three ACs would have to work hard to protect the tetrapod from direct assaults, though, as its heavy firepower came at the steep cost of its manoeuvrability. 

“Vinegar,” Rusty said. “Alright, so what’s the plan?”

“The plan is we get in there and slaughter these corporate dogs while we have the chance,” came Ziyi’s predictably bloodthirsty response. “And steal all their stuff while we’re at it.”

“...smash and grab,” Vinegar muttered. 

“Flatwell was clear that he wanted this to be done as carefully as possible,” Rokumonsen said. He loved Ziyi, but she lacked any sort of impulse control when it came to the corporations. Just charging in there with a “kill ‘em all!” mindset would end up with them dying horribly. “As Vinegar says, we shall strike unexpectedly, and after sending their forces into disarray, take what we can carry and escape into the night before they can regroup.”

“I don’t know about SHINOBI, Rokumonsen, but YUE YU isn’t a warehouse MT. These arms aren’t very good at carrying off shipping containers,” Ziyi deadpanned. “Won’t it be easier to kill everyone here and call in the transporter helicopter? We can take our time making sure we have everything, then.”

“No. There are too many patrols in the area that can reinforce the base. We carry a risk of being overwhelmed if we attempt to hold the base for any set period of time.”

“I get that, but I see Ziyi’s point,” Rusty said slowly. “Our ACs aren’t exactly weightlifting champions, and there’s our weapons to consider as well. I think the tetrapod is already overburdened as it is, too.”

“Yeah,” Vinegar muttered. “I’ll have to jettison one of the weapons to carry a shipping container, at most.”

“What does Uncle say about it?” Ziyi asked. 

“Too risky to attempt long-range comms this close to the base,” Rusty said. “But there’s two transporter helicopters within short-range comms distance that we can call in. We’d need to hold the base for about thirty minutes to take what they can carry and bug out of here.”

Rokumonsen stifled a sigh. So much for a quick ‘smash and grab’. 

“I knew I liked you for a reason,” Ziyi drawled. “Alright, so we’ll charge in and smash some-”

“Ortus,” Rokumonsen interrupted, ignoring Ziyi’s irritated little tch in response. “I suggest that we assault the enemy base simultaneously, you from the east, and I from the west. We will converge on the centre, and attempt to trap the HC in a pincer attack. Vinegar can give us covering fire from the MTs.”

“What about me?” Ziyi hotly protested. “Don’t tell me I’m on tetrapod babysitting duty.”

“Ziyi, you’re on tetrapod babysitting duty,” Rusty said. “No offence, Vinegar.”

“None taken.”

“Are you kidding-?!”

“Vinegar is vulnerable to direct attacks, Ziyi,” Rokumonsen said. “Someone must act as their stalwart protector, and I can think of no one else more suited for the task than you. You have a shield, after all, whereas Ortus and I are merely honed blades - deadly yet brittle.” 

Ziyi sighed dramatically, but her tone was mollified as she said: “Okay, fine. I’ll make sure Vinegar’s safe from the jackals, I suppose.” 

More that Rokumonsen hoped Vinegar would keep Ziyi safe by reminding her that there was more than the glory of battle. Ziyi was a skilled AC pilot, but she was young and prone to hotheadedness when riled enough - and nothing riled her more than fighting ‘corporate dogs’. Giving her a mission to protect a fellow Rubiconian would help her remain even-tempered. 

“So, we have a plan,” Rusty said, sounding a little amused. “Wait for me and Rokumonsen to engage the HC before you two move in. Once we deal with the HC and the MTs are dealt with, you guys can find a reinforced position to dig into in case any of the patrols come racing back.”

“Understood.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Rokumonsen?” Rusty asked. “You ready?”

Rokumonsen stowed whatever misgivings he had to the wayside, acknowledging that they wouldn’t avail him here. He had confidence in Rusty’s skill, and Rokumonsen was confident in his own as well. If they played this smart, they could decimate this base and return to the Warrens with a considerable haul - at the cost of increasing Arquebus’s security in this region, but Flatwell had likely accounted for that possibility. 

So, he said: “Yes. On your signal, Ortus.” 

“Then let’s fly. It’s about time the Liberation Front gave Arquebus a bloody nose.”

This was the first time Rusty had taken STEEL HAZE ORTUS on a real sortie. 

He’d done a period of familiarisation with the AC, of course, and that frantic race to find Raven before Arquebus did, but he hadn’t yet tested it in a real combat situation. Rusty couldn’t help but note the glaring differences to the original STEEL HAZE, how it felt heavier whenever it boosted, and how much broader it was compared to the lankier Nachtreiher frame - but it was sturdier.

STEEL HAZE had been a good AC. In Rusty’s hands it had even been deadly, but he hadn’t been blind to its drawbacks. Its nimbleness made it fragile, every battle a risky, delicate dance with death, the constant pressure to always think tactically ahead several paces, since one misstep, one poor moment of judgement, would be the dramatic end to V.IV Rusty and STEEL HAZE. 

But that had been fine. Rusty owned those risks, he made sure to run circles around everyone he crossed figurative blades with. He had to be fleet of foot to survive? Then he would be the swiftest - so fast that not even death could catch him. He had no peer, he had arrogantly thought, no one could keep up with him. STEEL HAZE’s fragility was a non-issue. 

Raven showed him otherwise. 

It was humbling, thinking back to it. He and Raven were kindred spirits in many ways, and one of them was their taste in ACs. STALKER was even more fragile than STEEL HAZE had been: all spindly limbs and delicate joints, armour light enough to let it leap to breathtaking heights, yet only thick enough to protect it from several kinetic rounds at most. Rusty had avidly (some would say obsessively) studied the various combat logs of Raven battling various foes across Rubicon, had thought himself prepared when challenging him down in the Depths - he has the same flaws as me, he had foolishly thought, and I know how he fights. I’ll win. I have to win. 

It hadn’t crossed his mind that the reverse was also true, and Rusty came to learn - brutally, harshly - that he was no longer the swiftest on Rubicon, that someone had overtaken him while he had been tunnel visioned on the approaching horizon and plunged him into their deep, inescapable shadow. It was a much-needed wake up call. 

Maybe the fight would’ve been different if he had STEEL HAZE ORTUS instead, with its sturdier armour and heavier firepower, but he knew that it wasn’t just the AC that had contributed to his loss. He couldn’t help but look back at that fight and make tactical amendments, knowing that next time he should do this, or that, and perhaps claim victory if they ever had a rematch. Just in case it ever came to pass. Just in case Raven’s status veered from its current nebulous state of coerced ally to major threat to Rubicon.

And in case that day came, Rusty needed to familiarise himself with STEEL HAZE ORTUS and cut its teeth against dangerous enemies, dangerous technology…   which this HC was meant to be, but…

The pilot clearly had no idea what they were doing. 

A spray of snow briefly clouded over STEEL HAZE ORTUS’s ocular feeds as the HC went barrelling past in an overshot charge, the tremendous inertia of its powerful thrusters combined with its staggering weight impacting the pilot’s ability to steer. It meant Rusty only had to pivot STEEL HAZE ORTUS just so, firing his TRUENO needle missile launcher as the HC struggled to reorientate itself. 

Direct hit: the needle sheared through the HC’s left arm as it turned, ripping it from the mech entirely. It might’ve been a mistake that the pilot could’ve recovered from - it still had its powerful NEBULA rifle clutched in its right hand, already swinging to bear, barrel alight with a charged shot - but Rokumonsen was already going in for the kill, plasma mine launcher sending a volley at the HC’s unguarded back. 

The bulky armour welded to its shoulders were blown clear from the Core itself, and the NEBULA shot wide, the screaming plasma wailing several yards to Rusty’s right and detonating against the side of a derelict tanker. It briefly lit up the battlefield in a flickering wave of purples and blues, and it was likely the very last thing the pilot saw before Rusty’s laser slicer sheared through its Core and the cockpit nestled within. 

“Enemy neutralised,” he said blandly, stepping away as the HC toppled lifelessly into the snow. “That was… underwhelming.” 

“The pilot was unfamiliar with its craft,” Rokumonsen said. “Unsurprising, considering it’s been less than a week since they’d claimed PCA’s armoury as their own.”

“It really isn’t wise to be deploying mechs they’re unfamiliar with…” Rusty agreed, even though he understood Arquebus’s logic. With Balam only barely clinging on, the PCA routed, and the Liberation Front deemed a non-threat, they likely thought that having their pilots roam around in boring patrols would be suitable on-the-job training for their new toys. Too bad for them that the Liberation Front wasn’t as defanged as they’d thought. 

And it wasn’t as if the HC had been the only enemy at this base. 

He turned, doing a quick scan of his environs. Ziyi wasn’t too far off, skating between the smouldering MT wrecks he and Rokumonsen had torn through in their initial assault. Every so often she would pause to kick an MT or two. Near the perimeter, using a collapsed tanker as a makeshift revetment, Vinegar was on overwatch, their artillery cannon deployed and ready to fire for the inevitable reinforcements that came at them from the south. 

“We should get to work. Rokumonsen, call in the transporter helicopters,” Rusty ordered. “I’ll patrol beyond the outpost’s perimetre - try to intercept any reinforcements before they come close. You stay here with Ziyi and Vinegar in case any get past me.”

Rokumonsen murmured his acknowledgement, and Rusty activated his boosters, leaping high into the air before gunning towards the highest point of the outpost: an old lattice metal tower that was leaning over slightly. It groaned when he gingerly landed his weight at its peak but otherwise held, and he used the heightened vantage point to survey his immediate surroundings. 

Nothing but great sheets of white stretching out for miles, the ice field’s horizon shrouded behind a thick ice fog that never really thinned out. Above the haze, the fiery Coral skies twinkled, splashes of orange and pinks intermingling with the scarlet as dawn began to kiss the firmament. It was a breathtaking sight, a beautiful dawn over Rubicon’s desolate landscape. 

Rusty doubted he could love anything more. 

He’d seen so many sunrises on other planets and all over Earth, yet none of them could hold a candle to this. It was one of the many things he had missed while infiltrating the Vespers, how he had made a ritual of waking up before the crack of dawn to watch it rise, over and over, and only thinking it’s not the same.  

The Coral that rippled across the sky made it seem like an ocean of glittering scarlet stars, sparks of light shining between them - like spotting the flashing scales of a minnow in a creek. If he flew up there, if he pushed STEEL HAZE ORTUS’s boosters and generator to the max, he was certain he could reach that starry ocean, could skim across its waves and dive through the Coral clouds all over Rubicon, free in a way he could never truly be. 

The yearning was visceral, this pull. Rusty didn’t really know what it stemmed from, the desire to leap up and cup those scarlet stars in his hands, even though he knew it would burn him, that the Coral would poison him and cast him back down to earth. Wasn’t it so very human, though, to try and skim the sun on wax wings? Even if he only gained a taste of absolute freedom for a scant heartbeat, it would be worth the fall afterwards.

He couldn’t help but think of Raven, how his eyes held that same starry ocean. Those Coral-eyes, with the intense, hidden depths, how Rusty felt like he was sinking into them whenever they made fleeting eye contact. It gave him that same yearning… and he knew how hot Raven’s star burned. 

Rusty’s hand throbbed in remembrance, a dull ache, and he idly flexed it. Maybe it wasn’t so surprising, that he was drawn to intently to him. How could he not be, when Raven’s eyes reminded him so painfully of Rubicon’s lonely sunrises? 

He hadn’t really had time to process his realisation in STALKER’s hatch, the true danger Raven held for him. Not only as a rival that constantly flew scant inches out of reach, but as a tempting Coral-star, melting his wings even as he chased him. Rusty wasn’t sure what to think of it, whether to dive in with abandon and damn the inevitable fall, or to start tempering himself, to pull away. 

They’d already established their lack of trust in each other. Now would be the time to do it. 

(‘SORRY,’ Raven had gently written into his palm, with delicate fingers and soft hands so brutally scarred. Rusty couldn’t help but think it represented the contradiction that was Raven so well: his inconsistent kindness juxtaposed to the vicious violence he delivered every day on Rubicon-)

‘PING!’

Rusty snapped to full alert, his HUD detecting an incoming signal. Not one of their transporter helicopters. Enemy. 

Setting aside all thoughts of Rubicon’s lonely dawns and Raven’s sad yet beautiful eyes, he leapt off the tower and assault boosted towards the signal, honing his focus. It didn’t take long for the threat to appear from the fog: two LCs, jetting back at max speed. Probably responding to an SOS the HC or one of the MTs had sent out. 

They spotted him immediately, the pair splitting to try and trap him in a pincer attack. Rusty hummed quietly, privately amused, and shifted his trajectory to aim for the one that darted to his right. The HUD beeped warningly - behind - and he barrel-rolled from the jet of plasma that seared through the space where he’d been just moments ago, his FCS pinging a lock-on as he did so. 

His needle launcher fired, its hypervelocity payload snapping through the air faster than the LC’s warning systems could register. The pilot still had a set of eyes though, frantically evading upwards so that the needle sheared through the LC’s leg, tearing it off completely, rather than through the Core itself. 

As that pilot flailed, trying to recompense for a missing limb - a minor problem for the ever airborne LCs - Rusty shifted gears to the one charging at his back, their plasma rifle spitting out screaming beams of light. Rusty weaved around them, STEEL HAZE ORTUS just as agile as its predecessor, and boosted in to slam a brutal kick around the LC’s skull, staggering it. 

He unloaded three rounds into its Core pointblank and kicked it again for good measure, watching as it plummeted to the snowy earth lifelessly. One down.

“You bastard!”

Rusty ignored the furious scream over the open comms, evading the last LC’s wild burst of plasma fire. Though the missing leg impacted their airborne stability, it also made them lighter - faster - enough so that Rusty’s FCS struggled to get a firm enough lock-on at range. Nothing for it, then. 

He assault boosted in, tanking a stray plasma bolt to the shoulder, and cleaved through the LC with a charged swing of his laser slicer. The LC sparked and hissed as it fell towards the earth to join its partner. Both enemies down. 

He let out a quiet breath, taking a pause to flex his aching hand. Arquebus really had fielded those LCs too quickly. They hadn’t put up much of a fight as the PCA pilots did… 

Which he should be thankful for, really. The Liberation Front needed these supplies, so a nice, easy mission should be exactly what he was hoping for. But… there was an itch, a craving that had been cultivated within him during his time as a Vesper: the desire to feel that glorious rush of adrenaline, to dance that risky, delicate dance of death where it would only take one bad hit to end him, a hit that always grazed him but never quite connected. He loved the way it made his heart thunder in his chest - the shivering feeling it left tingling up his thighs. 

…probably a sign he’d spent too much time around V.I Freud, thinking about it, but it was a craving that was being left neglected on this mission. Maybe if another HC showed up, he’d satisfy it, but…

“Don’t go tempting fate now, Rusty,” he muttered to himself, moving on from the two LCs to do a patrolling ring around the base. On his HUD, his IFF pinged: two transporter helicopters, coming in fast. Theirs. 

And another ping - not theirs. A set of LCs, hot on the helicopters’ trail. 

Well, back to work. 

As the sun climbed above the horizon, a blizzard had started to roll in - the ice fog thickened, and flecks of ice and snow started to batter at STEEL HAZE ORTUS’s ocular feeds, casting everything into a faint haze. It had been at least twenty minutes since the transporter helicopters had landed at the base, and judging by the chatter over the comms, they still weren’t close to finishing their supply liberation. 

“First helicopter’s fully loaded! We’re starting on the second.”

“Fennel, it’d be wise for you to depart now,” Rokumonsen said. “Quickly, while there’s still time. The enemy can return at any moment in larger numbers.”

“Got it. I’ll see you guys back at base, alright?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the pilot of the second helicopter drawled. “We’ll be right behind you. Only got five containers to load onto here. Save a drink for me when you get back!”

Rusty watched as the signal for Fennel’s helicopter rose up and began to pull away, heading back towards the Warrens. He kept his eyes on the greying horizon, the wall of cloud and ice slowly crawling over the ice fields towards their position. It wouldn’t be a problem - you didn’t last long out here if you didn’t blizzard-proof your equipment - but the sensors would struggle to detect anything with all that interference. Enemy reinforcements could use the blizzard as cover until they were, quite literally, on top of them. Not ideal. 

But he, and Rokumonsen, as well as one well-aimed shot from Vinegar’s tetrapod, had eliminated four LC patrols that had tried retaking the base, to no avail. The last patrol had been almost ten minutes ago, and the long lull had Rusty increasingly twitchy. 

He knew Arquebus protocols. At least one of those patrols would’ve sent an emergency SOS to the nearest outpost, which was far more heavily manned - and could relay a request for Vesper support. While the Vesper ranks had been thinned, somewhat, there was still the likes of O’Keeffe or Freud that could be deployed. O’Keeffe, he could work around, but Freud… 

It was unlikely, though. Snail was oddly conservative about sending Freud out on sorties - much to the man’s eternal frustration - so if a Vesper was on approach, it would likely be O’Keeffe, Pater… or Snail himself. 

God, he hoped it was Snail. 

“You know,” Ziyi grumbled over the open comms. “I said YUE YU wasn’t a warehouse MT. Why am I having to move the containers? Rokumonsen is literally just standing around making up haikus about the snow.”

“I am also standing guard, ready to intercept our foes,” Rokumonsen sniffed. “Creating haikus helps maintain my meditative focus. With the ice and snow closing in, obscuring our sight both mechanical and physical, I must stay on guard to ensure those fiends don’t sneak up on us.”

“That’s a lot of words to say ‘I’m supervising so I don’t have to do the grunt work’.”

“What Rokumonsen means is that out of all of us, you’re the strongest, Ziyi,” Rusty said, not bothering to hide his mocking amusement. “Have you seen SHINOBI or ORTUS’s arms? They’d snap in half trying to pick up a container. Those big guns of YUE YU-”

“Oh my god, shut up before I throw this container at your stupid head, asshole.”

Rusty chuckled, shifting STEEL HAZE ORTUS to a higher vantage point just in case Ziyi did make good on her threat. She was a rather impulsive little hothead. 

The metal of the half-collapsed tanker he landed on groaned warningly, but held as he did a quick scan of their base. The blizzard was pretty close now, high winds whipping the snow into a thick flurry that was hard to see through, frosting over STEEL HAZE ORTUS’s ocular feeds. Amongst the snow, dots of black from the various LCs and MTs they had destroyed littered the landscape, though they were slowly being consumed by the ice. 

He doubted Arquebus would bother digging them back up, when they reclaimed the base after they left. The LCs, maybe, to recycle them, but the bog standard MTs? They’re nothing more than armoured coffins, now. 

“Poor bastards,” Rusty muttered, even if he felt nothing for them, really. His time on Earth had hardened his heart to those who lived in the comforts of the central colonies, with their ignorance and selfishness about the misery most of humanity toiled under. It wasn’t just Rubicon choking under the oppressive yoke of the Corporations, there were so many other planets too, designated as ‘production facilities’, the locals there forced into inhumane conditions to ensure that the colonies in the solar system and Earth itself continued to thrive in luxurious conditions. 

The whole system was rotten to the core. The only hope Rubicon had was to reclaim their planet and break away entirely, to denounce the title of ‘human’ and become Rubiconians in name and spirit. That was what Rusty believed, in any case. 

He wasn’t sure what drew his attention initially - it was a brief flicker within the thick fog of the incoming blizzard, a dark swooping motion that had him sharply turning ORTUS’s head towards it. The scanners revealed nothing, but his senses were on high alert, and he stared intently, depressing the trigger of his right joystick until he felt the first bit of resistance. 

A full two minutes passed - he counted - listening to the chatter over the comms: Ziyi’s complaints, Rokumonsen’s repartees, and the helicopter’s pilot exasperation. Morale was high, after all. They’d taken a patrol base and were making off with all of their supplies unopposed. But Rusty felt a coiling dread in his belly, a premonition of- 

-a sudden salvo of explosive charges came flying out of the blizzard, crashing against the dilapidated wrecks and frozen ground, sending lethal debris and shrapnel everywhere. 

“Fucking- shit!” Ziyi yelped. 

“Enemy!” Rokumonsen barked. 

Rusty had instinctively leapt upwards just before the payload hit - and very nearly lost his head when something came screaming out of the fog, laser blade swinging through the air with deadly precision. STEEL HAZE ORTUS had to practically limbo in mid-air - its joints creaking in protest from the rapid and awkward movement - to avoid it, and blindly boosted to the side as kinetic rounds struck against his AC’s armoured flank. 

“Go, go, go!” Ziyi was yelling over comms. “Fly, you idiot!”

“I’m going! I’m going!”

“Ziyi! Vinegar! Follow the helicopter! I’ll aid Ortus!”

Rusty gritted his teeth, annoyed that he actually needed that aid - he still hadn’t gotten a good look at the AC. It was sticking to him like glue, yet trying to remain in his blind spot, peppering him with kinetic rounds with the occasional salvo of explosives trying to strike him down. Whoever this guy was - he was determined to take Rusty down, and it was taking all of his skill and reflexes to deftly evade and weave around the AC’s killing blows. Who the hell was this-?!

“Hyah! Face my blade, fiend!”

Plasma explosions flickered across Rusty’s ocular feeds, and the AC pursuing him was forced to break away. Rusty drove his generator into the near red to gain what precious distance he could, STEEL HAZE ORTUS’s feed scraping across metal as he landed on a half-collapsed platform. 

“...blade? That was a plasma mine you- ugh, whatever.”

Rusty felt his insides curdle at that voice. Freud.

“I was sent out here to find a stray dog,” Freud drawled, forcing Rokumonsen to back off by sending a laser drone to harry him, SHINOBI nimbly darting around the piercing lasers trying to strike into the AC’s vulnerable points. “Looks like I found a pack of mangy coyotes instead.”

Rusty held his tongue against any response, knowing that Freud would recognise his voice in an instant. He tried to plan his next move instead, the battle entering a sort of lull as Freud landed on a broken tower, and Rokumonsen, freed from the laser drone harrying him, landed on the snowy, scorched earth, placing them all in a loose triangle. 

“...don’t suppose you’ve seen Raven around, have you?” Freud asked. “He’s my real target.”

“To claim or to destroy?” Rokumonsen asked stiffly. “Either way, we know nothing of that independent mercenary. Was he not killed in Institute City?”

Freud said nothing for a very long moment. His AC, LOCKSMITH, was angling towards Rusty’s, and even with several layers of steel and metres of air between them, Rusty could feel the piercing stare Freud was levelling towards him. He was interested - suspicious. Rusty felt himself start to sweat. 

“...you’re rather quiet, aren’t you?” Freud mused. “Cat got your tongue, ‘Ortus’?”

The way he said ‘Ortus’, rolling the word over his tongue with an audible smile in his voice, had Rusty growing tense as a board. ‘That’s not your name’, the tone said, ‘you little liar’.

“And with how expertly you piloted that AC of yours, your profile should be known to the Vespers,” Freud continued. “But, strangely, ‘Ortus’ isn’t known at all. Did you just pop out of the ground today?”

Rusty’s FCS beeped softly. Target lock-on achieved. 

“Hm.” Freud let out an amused exhale. “Maybe I found that stray dog after all.”

Wait, what-

Rokumonsen exploded into action, launching a homing missile and a detonating missile as he assault boosted forwards. Freud was forced to leap away, explosions sending shockwaves through the half-rusted hulks that loomed over the patrol base, and Rusty swiftly repositioned to get a good shot, as Freud was sent on the defensive by the homing missile and Rokumonsen’s aggressive attacks. 

“Rokumonsen, I know you. You’re not half-bad, I guess,” Freud drawled, not sounding overly taxed. “You’re good at putting on the pressure and taking advantage of it, but-”

Freud ducked around a metal beam, the homing missile harmlessly exploding against it, and swung around to smash a brutal kick into SHINOBI’s Core, sending the lightweight AC reeling backwards - just as Freud fired his shoulder-mounted bazooka at it from point-blank range.

Rusty barely held back a “no!” as SHINOBI took the brunt of the explosive charges, the AC’s ablative armour stripped down almost to the base layer as it was sent careening to the ground in an uncontrolled fall. It was survivable, but it was also clear that Rokumonsen was now out of the fight - his AC had the same flaw as STEEL HAZE: agile, but fragile.

“-you can’t take a hit.” Freud turned towards him. “Now, where were we, stray dog?”

Fuck, Rusty thought eloquently. 

Freud gunned for him with relentless focus, his TURNER rifle barking out continuous fire. Rusty fired off a hypervelocity needle to try and break off his advance as he tried to keep distance between them, knowing that while the TURNER rifle was good at suppressive fire, it had a short range. STEEL HAZE ORTUS’s armour would be able to tank the rounds so long as he kept his distance. 

Easier said than done, though. Freud didn’t let up on his pursuit once, expertly managing his energy so that he never dropped back too far as Rusty bobbed and weaved around the broken ruins the patrol base was set up in, using it as cover. The whole fight became a game of cat-and-mouse, each of them firing potshots and round bursts at each other whenever they had the chance, but never landing a solid hit. 

Rusty had never felt so taxed in his life.

He’d fought Freud before - in simulations - but Rusty hadn’t put his all into those fights. He had to maintain his cover, conceal the true extent of his abilities, and so those simulation fights were never drawn out or overly long. This, however, was the both of them pitting their full abilities against one another, and Rusty was beginning to realise that just like Raven, Freud was in a whole class of his own. 

He was relentless, he was terrifyingly quick on his feet and adaptable… but, he wasn’t perfect. Rusty gradually began to realise, throughout their little game of tag, that Freud’s loadout wasn’t really suited to the environment. 

Out on the open ice fields, Rusty might’ve lost by now, but in these tight confines and with all these structures and debris in the way, Freud couldn’t use his bazooka nor his laser drone, he couldn’t close the distance to use his laser blade, and the kinetic rounds of the TURNER couldn’t quite penetrate STEEL HAZE ORTUS’s armour whenever they solidly hit. 

Meanwhile, the Viento needle gun was perfect for this environment - fast enough to maintain the necessary momentum to pierce through LOCKSMITH’s armour in the brief windows of opportunities he was given. While Freud was quick enough to ensure none of those hits were fatal, he was enduring a death by a thousand cuts.

But it was a delicate dance all the same. One misstep from Rusty would be the end of him, and he couldn’t keep this up forever. Something had to give, and soon.

“Interesting,” Freud muttered, something almost frenetic in his voice. “You’re not boring at all, stray dog. Such a clever little thing. Haha, I wonder who’s going to slip up first…”

Oh, Rusty really didn’t like that tone. 

But he didn’t let it distract him, even as unpleasantly aware as he was of how, uh, horny Freud got whenever his blood got pumping in battle. Instead, he had a sudden idea, and cut his boosters to drop to the ground level after darting behind a rusted tanker. He skated beneath a low-hanging sheet of metal, partially concealed from view, waiting as Freud came barrelling around the tanker, rifle raised-

And hesitated, for just a split-second. 

That was all Rusty needed, though. He exploded forwards into a powerful assault boost, blasting through that thin sheet of metal and blindly reaching out. Freud didn’t evade in time: STEEL HAZE ORTUS’s hands clamped around LOCKSMITH’s leg and, using both his momentum and weight, swung the AC around and slammed it full force against the side of the tanker. 

LOCKSMITH crashed through the rusting metal in a flail of limbs, Rusty in close pursuit, fighting through the debris flying everywhere to get in close once more. Too close to let Freud safely deploy his slicer or bazooka, grappling with the AC in mid-air as they tumbled over each other. Rusty’s FCS began chirping - lock-on achieved - and depressed the trigger for his needle launcher. 

The hypervelocity needle, fired at pointblank range, decapitated LOCKSMITH in a single blow. 

“What-?!” Freud cut himself off with a grunt as their ACs hit the earth in a tangle of metal limbs. Rusty’s HUD was alight with flashing warnings, but he quickly climbed to his feet, slamming his foot down on Freud’s left arm, bringing the Viento needle gun to bare- 

-only for Freud to fire off his bazooka. 

STEEL HAZE ORTUS was thrown backwards from the numerous explosions slamming into its front, the ablative armour protecting him from the brunt of it. ‘AP at 50%’, chirped the warning systems, and Rusty silently cursed, realising he couldn’t stick around for much longer. He can’t wreck STEEL HAZE ORTUS on its first combat sortie! 

So, he didn’t wait. Wrestling with his AC’s struggling stability, he launched blindly into the air, boosting away before the smoke even fully cleared. He frantically scanned for SHINOBI, and breathed a sigh of relief when its signal wasn’t nearby, the place where the AC had fallen empty. Must’ve pulled out when he could - always a pragmatic survivor, him. 

“Wait- where’re you going!?” Freud howled over the comms. “I’m not done! LOCKSMITH can still fight! I can still fight! RAVEN! GET BACK HERE! I WANT MORE! GIVE ME MORE!”

Rusty just kept going, letting the howling blizzard swallow STEEL HAZE ORTUS up as he flew beyond the patrol base’s perimeter. His vision was filled with nothing but white, and Freud’s furious voice descended into incoherent crackling before cutting out entirely, the relentless ice and snow scrambling any short-range sensors. 

But his AC could tell which way was north and that was all he needed to get back home. As his energy began to dip into the red, he dropped from the assault boost down into the more energy-efficient skate along the ice and snow, feeling his pulse slowly drop from the sprinting pace it had been during that fight. 

He could feel himself tremble still, a mix of adrenaline and nerves, hyperaware of his heart thumping against his ribcage and those little tingles going up his inner thighs. Slowly, a sharp pain started to trickle through the haze, and a quick glance at his hand showed a few dots of red showing through the bandage. He’d been clenching his joystick so hard throughout that fight he’d reopened the bite wound. 

Fucking hell. 

Fucking hell.

Freud thought he’d been Raven.

Rusty wasn’t sure how to feel about it, that upon meeting a mysterious, skilled AC, that had been Freud’s first assumption. Not V.IV Rusty, whose body and AC was never found in the Depths, and thus was a schrodinger’s cat in terms of survival. No, Raven. Only Raven would be skilled enough to keep up with Freud like that, after all, not the possibly dead, possibly alive ex-Vesper, V.IV Rusty. 

“Damn it,” Rusty muttered. What a mess this turned out to be. 

But the mission was a success, that was all that mattered. With luck, Rokumonsen would make it back to the Warrens too - if not, he knew how to hunker down and wait for help, if he needed it. Rusty had to be satisfied with that. The mission was a success and no losses were sustained, despite the snarl that was V.I Freud showing up. He should be happy, or at the very least, content. 

But he wasn’t. He just felt dissatisfied… irritated, almost. He could’ve won that fight if he pushed it a little longer, but Uncle had been clear that STEEL HAZE ORTUS had to be treated carefully until the time was right. It would be expensive to repair if it sustained heavy damage, and Rusty was one of the very few AC pilots the Liberation Front had. He couldn’t gamble on a fight with Freud just to satisfy his wounded pride. 

Freud assuming him to be Raven, though…

…

…it rankled. 

Chapter Text

C4-621 had a very complicated relationship with sleep. 

It was a necessary biological function, and unavoidable. It was also C4-621’s most hated activity, as it never truly brought him rest. The supposed restorative properties of a good night’s sleep continuously eluded him, and C4-621 wasn’t sure if it was because of his injury, or whether it was something he had always endured - an unpleasant side effect of his augmentations that made it impossible for his brain to switch off completely. 

C4-621 would close his eyes and fall unconscious, but he wouldn’t be unconscious. There was always a strange edge of lucidity to it, as his brain, inspired by the sudden blank canvas that was his processing queue, churned out old, garbled memories and thoughts, splashing them across the forefront of his mind and forcing him to look and evaluate. He had to process whatever was put in front of him, it was how his implants were programmed. Unless the STOP command was disseminated through his cerebral control implant, his mind was always, always, always processing something.  

Some nights, he might be blessed with something relatively benign. He remembered once having a very bizarre yet intense dream of walking back and forth from the garage to his personal quarters, hearing Handler Walter say endlessly “I’ve got a job for you, 621”. It had gone on for six hours, forty-two minutes and fifty-seven seconds before the ‘dream’ ended and he woke up to Walter telling him “I’ve got a job for you, 621” - except C4-621 had thought it was still part of the dream and had returned to his personal quarters as soon as he had arrived at the garage as instructed, which meant Walter had to collect him and confirm that, no, this is reality, not a dream, what the hell are you doing 621, get back to the garage and attend the briefing. 

Confusing and disorientating, but benign. C4-621 didn’t mind those lucid dreams. They were inconvenient, but harmless. 

This one wasn’t. 

It was of Luyten colony, and also one of the worst days of C4-621’s life. 

The planet Gliese, orbiting the red dwarf Luyten’s Star, was a relatively new colony despite its status as a potentially habitable Super-Earth. The initial survey by multiple corporations had discovered a wealth of precious and rare metal deposits on most of the system’s planets, which had resulted in a large legal squabble in the Earth courts as to who had the colonisation and mining rights of each planet, moon and asteroid. 

Said legal battle hadn’t actually concluded yet, but Luyten’s Star was so far away from Earth that some corporations had decided to pre-emptively plant their flag, to take what they could before they were possibly kicked out to make way for the ‘rightful’ owner. It meant the solar system was a wild west of corporate and independent mercenaries alike - and certain intelligence services. 

Luyten colony, established on Gliese, was owned partially by Coral Integrated Technologies (CIT) - the corporation that Asset 04 was subordinate to - and Proserpina Extrasolar Mining Enterprises (PEME). Unsurprisingly, the colony mostly specialised in strip mining, PEME frantically trying to extract as much rare metals as they could before any competitors tried to muscle them out or raid any of their shipments. 

CIT, however, had established a rather discreet laboratory deep into the rocky wilderness of the half-terraformed planet. On paper, the laboratory was dedicated towards integrating Coral into terraforming technologies to hasten the process in a safe yet cost-effective manner. In reality, it was a black site where CIT could continue to conduct their far more immoral and illegal Coral experimentations away from the ever watchful eye of Earth’s government. 

CIT had numerous sites like these dotted across the galaxy, but Asset 04 wasn’t really privy to what they actually got up to. It was usually the likes of Asset 09 and Asset 10 that conducted the site inspections and removed any unwanted elements from the production line. Asset 04 and Asset 06 were cleaners - problem solvers. 

And apparently, there was a problem in the Luyten colony. 

“It’s been almost a month since we last received communications from our black site on Gliese,” Mission Control said, as Asset 04 and Asset 06 quietly waited for their shuttle to land on the planet’s surface, already synchronised to their ACs. “Asset 12, who was assigned to guard the site, has also not responded to check in commands. You’re to investigate and destroy any evidence, before PEME’s in-house AC squad gets here.”

“ETA on their arrival?” Asset 06 asked. 

“We’re six hours ahead of them, so act fast. Salvage Asset 12 if possible, but if you’re unable to fulfil that objective, initiate denial protocols. We can’t let another corporation study our intellectual property.”

“Understood,” Asset 06 said. “We’ll make a pyre for her.”

“Make it look like an accident, if you can… the advantage of working with PEME is that everything can be covered up as an unfortunate mining accident in some way. Don’t try to be creative, just a basic Coral engine failure of their mining systems will do.”

“Understood, chief.” There was a hint of a smile to Asset 06’s voice as he added: “We’ll make some lovely fireworks for the PEME lads to admire.”

“Don’t get carried away, Asset 06.”

The shuttle shuddered. 

“Looks like you’ve hit Gliese’s gravity well. Remember, be quick and decisive. Your extraction point will be given to you after the PEME AC squad lands, once we figure out a discreet approach. They can’t know we were here, so contact us only if mission-critical, understand?”

“We understand.”

Asset 04 sent his acknowledgement via two beeps. Mission Control disconnected, and Asset 06 immediately opened private comms with him, as their shuttle continued its rattling descent. 

“Well, well, seems like we’re not being supervised~ You know what that means, don’t you?” Asset 06 purred, sounding thoroughly pleased. “A tacit approval for any measures we deem necessary.”

Asset 04 didn’t acknowledge. 

“I do wonder what happened to Twelve, though,” Asset 06 mused. “She’s not the type to go down without a fight, stubborn bitch that she is.” 

No, she wasn’t. Asset 04 had crossed paths with her a few times - whilst trailing in Asset 06’s very long and dark shadow - and he recalled how blunt and dismissive she’d been. She was one of the more recent CIT products, purportedly cutting-edge and superior to the older Assets due to possessing the most modern and fine-tuned Coral augmentations, and she had certainly internalised that supposed fact. 

Not that that was unusual, really. Most Assets were like that. For example, Asset 06 was convinced that he was God’s gift to mankind itself, and that out of all the other Assets he was clearly the strongest, smartest and most perfect. True, his augmentations were getting on the old side of things, but he had experience and talent. That was what truly mattered, not how many technical bells and whistles you had crammed into your augments. 

Asset 04 took the more controversial approach of: they were all equally fucked up freaks with crippling mental deficiencies and that they should never be allowed out amongst humans without close supervision. Asset 06 did not like this description, so Asset 04 made sure to tell him it almost every day. 

But the silence that lapsed after Asset 06’s implied he actually wanted some form of acknowledgement, so Asset 04 typed turtle-slow: «Maybe the lab blew up with her in it.»

Asset 06 snorted. “Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised. I think two of us have died like that already.”

Asset 02 and Asset 03. The official internal memo about their termination and recycling had detailed it as an unfortunate accident at two separate research labs - all within a week of each other. Asset 04 didn’t really believe it, but it also wasn’t any of his business, and with how precarious his position was after the injury, he was keeping his head down and his gaze firmly fixed on his feet. What could he even do anyways, even if it was all false? Asset 06 could believe all he wanted about them being the next step in human evolution, they were still mere dogs on very short, choking leashes, beholden to CIT’s whims. 

Asset 04’s mood soured, barely listening as Asset 06 continued. 

“Still, we better be careful. It might’ve been a raid by one of CIT’s competitors. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them had managed to obtain some Institute tech to try and keep up with us…”

«The Fires destroyed everything.»

“I know you’re brain-damaged, Four, but you’re not a complete moron,” Asset 06 drawled. “Just because Earth gov said that doesn’t mean it’s true. If there’re colonists they’re still evacuating from the planet, then there’s still stuff to salvage. Humans are pretty flammable, y’know.”

So was Coral, and a lot of Institute tech ran off that, just like them. Asset 04 didn’t bother arguing the point though, and instead said, when the shuttle began to shudder violently: «Re-entry.»

“Right.”

Conversation - as stilted as it was - lulled for the rest of the ride. Asset 04, for lack of anything better to do, fixed PREDATOR’s targeting reticule on HAWK - Asset 06’s AC - studying its intensely familiar form.

Much like its namesake, HAWK’s profile gave off an avian impression. The AC’s legs were reverse-jointed and set in a deep squat to allow for powerful leaps that outstripped anything a commercially available AC could achieve, and its feet ended in four, cruel looking talons, two on the back and two on the front. Those claws were capable of gripping or slashing, each claw capable of deploying a very intense, albeit short-lived, laser blade.

But such a unique capability for an AC came at a steep cost. HAWK was impossibly light and agile, but its armour was practically nonexistent. It relied on the premise of ‘the best defence is to never be hit’, and as a result its profile was slim, with spindly arms that were armed with a laser dagger and a light submachine gun. It also lacked any shoulder weapons, the space instead dedicated to bulky yet powerful thrusters and boosters to grant HAWK aerial manoeuvrability that other ACs lacked. 

It was an AC that excelled as a precise blade - like a bird of prey diving down and breaking the spine of its victim. Its main weakness was prolonged contact with an enemy forewarned, but that’s why Asset 06 and Asset 04 functioned as assassins and cleaners. They weren’t here to play fair and fight other ACs face-to-face in an honourable fight. 

In comparison, PREDATOR was an AC made for the earth. It had a quadrupedal and bipedal mode depending on the terrain and mission requirements, with a powerful, long-range spinal cannon that fired a hypervelocity slug at the cost of a considerably long cooldown time. Aside from the cannon, it was also armed with a pulse blade and a shotgun, the latter which was usually mounted on his shoulder unless he required its use.

But its main unique trait was the myriad of metal plates and vents applied along its body, the metal reacting to a gaseous substance the AC emitted to be as close to invisible as one could be in this modern age. 

To the naked eye, one would be able to see the gas shroud and the AC within it with ease, but electronic sensors - both visual and electromagnetic - were expertly spoofed. Of course, PREDATOR only had so much gas stored, so the stealth cloaking was something to ration out for perfect ambushes. Much like HAWK, it also wasn’t well-suited to prolonged combat against a forewarned enemy. 

Asset 04 couldn’t help but wonder, as their shuttle hurtled towards Gliese’s surface, what they’d do if there was Institute tech down there, or at the very least, a prepared rival AC squad. Unless they could set up a successful ambush, a prolonged fight would probably end up with them being written off in an unfortunate accident, and PEME coming by to scrape up the mess in the aftermath. 

Just… something about this whole mission put him on edge. It wasn’t their usual thing. 

But he didn’t have time to ponder it in depth. The shuttle jerked abruptly, PREDATOR’s inertia dampers kicking in harshly, as the shuttle scraped and bounced along the ground until it came to a sharp halt. Asset 04 exhaled shakily. He felt like the air had been pushed out of his lungs. 

“Finally…” Asset 06 groaned, sounding winded himself. “Let’s go, Four.”

The docking clamps holding their ACs in place released as the shuttle’s doors opened. Asset 06 deployed immediately, with Asset 04 following at a far more sedate pace, stepping out onto Gliese’s surface. 

It was rocky, was his first thought, the ground uneven and covered in loose, shale-like stones. The sky was a strange orangey red, with a faint yellowish haze closer to ground level. PREDATOR’s sensors told him that the atmosphere wasn’t suitable for humans, with it being over 90% carbon dioxide, and the remainder a mix of sulphur, oxygen and nitrogen. On the horizon, he could see an oxygen terraformer half-built atop of a squat hill less than a kilometre away, scaffolding and construction vehicles silhouetted against the orange-red sky. 

“Coordinates for the stripmine are just past that terraformer,” Asset 06 said. “Hm, strange… my sensors aren’t picking up any lifesigns nearby.”

And their descent in the shuttle wouldn’t have gone unnoticed by CIT elements. Asset 04 pinged his own sensors, but there were no lifesigns or anything detected on approach. That uneasy feeling sitting as heavy as a stone in his belly intensified.

“C’mon, Four. Let’s check out that terraformer.”

As one, they boosted towards the terraformer, closing the distance in under a minute. They landed just outside the fenced off worksite, their ACs towering over the barbed wire and peering down at the machinery with their scanners activated. 

No lifesigns. 

The worksite wasn’t abandoned, though. There were fresh vehicle tracks and evidence that it had been occupied at least a few days ago, and as Asset 04 prowled the edges of the worksite, he didn’t see any sign of struggle or an attack - not by AC or MT means, in any case. He looked up, at the towering superstructure that had portions of its hull missing, the internal components out on display. No visible damage. 

“Hey, Four. Come here.”

Asset 04 turned away and walked over to where HAWK was positioned on the edge of the hill, staring down at the nearby stripmine. It looked like a gaping wound in the rocky earth, dug so deep that even from their high vantage point it looked bottomless, the entire area fenced off with guard posts and long-range Anti-MT guns. Much like with the terraformer, it appeared deserted but not abandoned, with no visible signs of attack or damage around the pit. It looked almost as if every worker had simply evaporated off the face of the planet, without warning. 

His unease began to shift into outright anxiety.

There was an odd sort of familiarity about this that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, a comparison that his subconscious was trying to draw but was coming up against an unyielding wall. He had to pause to rub his forehead against the sudden dull ache building behind his eyes, but quickly refocused when Asset 06 advanced without a word, heading for the stripmine. 

They boosted down the hill and landed on the cracked tarmac road that led up to the main excavation site, the gate left wide open and unattended. Their ACs were tall enough to simply step over the gate - they were only intended to keep out vehicles or humans at most - but the distinct lack of security only made more alarm bells ring in Asset 04’s head as they penetrated deeper into the site. Various mining equipment lay abandoned, civilian transporters inert and powered down, and a faint ringing noise began to thrum on the very edge of his hearing.

Inside his cockpit, Asset 04 shivered from a sudden, icy chill.

“...where the hell is everyone?” Asset 06 muttered. 

The slate-like rocks that dusted the ground in between tarmaced areas audibly crunched beneath their ACs’ feet - slippery like ice. Asset 04 tilted PREDATOR’s head up, ocular feeds focusing on how quickly twilight had descended on them, a thin flurry of snow beginning to fall from the gathering clouds above. In the gaps, the sky seemed to shift between a starry night’s sky to a wavering scarlet Coral-haze after every blink. Frost blurred the edges of PREDATOR’s ocular feeds.

“It’s too quiet.”

They both reached the edge of the stripmine. Abruptly, his mind finally managed to make the comparison it had been straining to before: wasn’t this like when Handler had sent him to BAWS Arsenal No 2? He peered down into the stripmine and blinked as the cut rock and spoil heaps blurred into the angular machinery that crafted BAWS MTs and weaponry. It had been snowing a little then too. A dark, cold night. 

…ven…

“We better investigate,” Asset 06 said, his voice oddly far away. “C’mon, buddy.” 

Asset 04 watched as Asset 06’s AC leapt off the edge of the stripmine into the BAWS facility below. He should follow, but he found himself rooted to the spot, gripped by a sudden surge of nauseous dread. This day had already happened, he realised in a sunburst of clarity - this horror story was already over and its ending written with utter finality, yet his mind was reliving it with a relentless determination. He could feel his muscles tense and PREDATOR start to lean forwards in preparation of a jump. He was going down there whether he liked it or not. 

no, he thought blankly, his entire body feeling hot and cold all at once. He jerked at the cockpit controls, but PREDATOR was already leaping from the edge of the stripmine/edge of the platform, down into the cavernous pit/production facility below. The walls around him were smears of earthen brown and gunmetal grey as he fell, and when he landed, it was to pinkish water splashing around STALKER’s feet, flecking the chipped, black paint with scarlet stars. 

The derelict vascular plant loomed, casting them all into a deep, impenetrable shadow.

…r…en…

Asset 06 wasn’t far from him, the sharp, jutting corners of his AC silhouetted against the faint glow of the water. There was no sound except for Asset 04’s uneven breathing and that continuous, piercing ringing. The next part… he didn’t want it to come, but it was like watching a tank round come flying at your face with no means to evade: all you could do was brace. 

It was dark - had it been night? the pit had been deep. had it been night? there might’ve been stars - and strange, crimson lights refracted against the walls of the facility/stripmine/pit, glints of dull red crystals jutting out of the rock/metal. The water sloshed loudly, waves that cascaded over STALKER's ankles, distorting the scarlet stars twinkling underneath. The waves moved almost rhythmically, in a set pattern, one, one, one, one, a quiet vrrm, vrrm, vrrm, vrrm, accompanying each ripple. 

The waves’ source was another AC shambling towards them, strange shadows writhing and dancing across its pale hull. Scarlet stars flickered and died in its wake, flaking away like dying embers from the cracks and crevices in its joints and armour. The light of its ocular feeds were a baleful crimson, and there was an edge of not right in how they moved, as if- 

…ven-!

“Twelve?” Asset 06’s voice was barely above a whisper, but it was so damnably loud all the same. “That’s her AC, but… there’s no lifesigns…” 

“Some advice before you go, 621…”  

Asset 04 didn’t dare to blink as Asset 12 halted, her AC’s frame angled slightly off, like whatever was inside was unaccustomed to having a torso and so wasn’t quite sure what to do with the extra weight. The glitter of her ocular feeds were piercingly bright, and uncomfortably intense. Asset 04 felt like she was staring into the STALKER's cockpit, right at him.

The sensors said: no lifesigns detected, yet there was definitely something alive in there, all the same.

“...expect the unexpected.”

Asset 12-

Raven!

Asset 04 jerked, the foreign-familiar shout snapping the distorted memory clean in half and-

THUD!

C4-621 slammed face first into the bed’s underside. 

Ah.

Dazzled by literal stars flashing in his vision, he collapsed back against his nest of pillows and blankets as he clutched at his smarting forehead with a groan. For one discombobulated moment, he was baffled as to why there was a bed in STALKER’s cockpit and how the hell it got in there, before he… remembered …

(“Twelve?”)

…he’d been sleeping. 

("I think two of us have died like that already.")

A dream. 

(“Don’t get carried away, Asset 06.”)

Luyten colony… right. 

(“Let’s go, Four.”)

It was well in the past, now. 

Slowly, he lowered his hands from his face, gingerly prodding at where a sharp stab of pain was thumping over his right eyebrow. His trembling fingertips came away bright red. A cut. In his mind’s eye, he just saw that pinkish water sloshing around their ACs’ feet, glittering with scarlet stars. 

Asset 12. Asset 06.

(The clench in his belly and the bile in his throat at remembering him - Asset 06. Asset 06 - almost snatched the air from his lungs. Even now, years later, he felt such a repulsive yearning for-)

He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. 

…I’m sorry, Raven. Do you… remember where you are?

He remembered. Rubicon. The Warrens. C4-621 pressed his palm against his cut before he dripped blood everywhere, scooting out from under the bed. The concrete floor was bitingly cold and the air only a smidge warmer, making him shiver as he knelt next to his bare mattress to pick through the items Thumper had gifted him against his will. Did she give him a personal medkit? He was pretty sure she did… 

In the left pile, underneath the woollen hat- yes, there. 

Got it. A little clumsily, because his hands were still shaking violently despite his best efforts, he unzipped the dark green pouch with a bright red + on the front, causing the medical items inside to spill out haphazardly. He sorted through it one-handed, until he fished out some precut squares of gauze. He ripped the packaging open with his teeth. 

It was odd, to be so distantly calm despite his body sprinting through a fight-or-flight response. His heart felt like it was lodged in the back of his throat, able to hear his pulse as a frantic rushing of blood in his ears. He was trembling, he was soaked in cold sweat - yet he felt nothing. He had a cut to deal with first. He pressed the gauze against his bleeding eyebrow with enough pressure that it hurt. 

He wasn’t quite sure how long he just sat there, staring into space as his body shook and trembled through the adrenaline, wondering why he just felt absolutely nothing. That had been the worst day of his life, and usually it cut like a blade striking bone, so viscerally deep and nauseating, that it snatched all the air out of his lungs. But he just felt numb. 

The memory hadn’t finished, true, and it got all garbled and mixed up near the end, but he’d seen enough - the beginning of that horrible awful nightmare that mission had become. His body was reacting like his soul should. Last time Walter had to coax him out of a cupboard and bandage up his arms.

But this time… there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just a hollow outline of a person.

You’re emotionally spent, Raven.

Maybe. 

But it left him with such a perverse sense of abstraction. He stared at his trembling hand and it was A Hand to him, marred with ugly scars and uglier veins that stood out starkly beneath too pale skin. It was a small and weak hand, fragile, and nothing like STALKER’s: clunky and stiff, but far more comfortable when curled around the grip of a weapon or clenched into a fist. In the AC, he was- safer, far safer, encased in a steel shell and untouchable by anything except a fatal blow to the Core-

-except that wasn’t true. Not even inside his Core was safe. Hadn’t he died there before? Hadn’t it all gone wrong at Luyten? Before then? Not even his Core was safe, (the shell splintered open and) so how was he meant to be safe now? If ever? Never as Asset 04 as PREDATOR when he had been on top of the world and in his prime and not at Luyten colony where everything went wrong and certainly not now as Raven who had failed to crawl to freedom and ended up in captivity once more, a broken little bird that just pathetically hopped along from one bird cage to the next. Nowhere was safe, outside or inside STALKER, no matter how much he wished, he wished- wished- wished-

Raven?

Fuck. Fuck.

C4-621 clutched at his throat with his free hand, (felt something hot and sticky between his fingers as he clawed at) feeling the lumpy and uneven scar tissue there against his palm. That unpleasant, heart-in-throat feeling (no matter how hard he heaved blood kept gurgling in the back of his) intensified until he felt like he was going to gag (choking and choking and choking) , and he had to drop the gauze and ease himself flat on his back the freezing cold floor as he (i can’t breathe) drew in very deep, slow breaths (i can’t breathe) as his vision shrank into a very narrow tunnel (i can’t breathe) and felt his body shake and tremble and (i can’t breathe) his heart vibrate apart (i can’t breathe), that distant, flat calm finally caving in on itself (i can’t breathe) like the thin slab of ice it had been (i can’t breathe) and dousing him (i can’t breathe) in freezing cold terrifying reality (i can’t breathe).

The ceiling was a speck of white at the very end of a dark tunnel, a mockery of a light that wasn’t really real. But it was something to focus on, so he did, that plain white ceiling searing itself into the back of his eyes - replacing the haunted flickers of memory (broken core, hands clamped over throat, red, blood and) threatening to drown the forefront of his mind like an oil spill. He rode the whole episode out, as he always did, until he came back to himself wheezing and panting and trembling, with Ayre agitatedly fluttering through his thoughts like a sparking stormcloud while somehow maintaining a soothing calmness in her voice: 

…and in four, three, two, one and hold four, three, two, one and exhale four, three, two, one…

C4-621 breathed shakily to Ayre’s timings, fisting his hands into the front of his shirt to try and get them to stop shaking, feeling the unsteady rise and fall of his chest. It was fine. He was fine. He managed to lie down in time, like Walter told him to do. Just another- another episode. One that felt like it had cut his legs out from under him with how suddenly it had come on, but not something unusual. He almost felt relieved - this was the response he had been expecting after his nightmare. 

Unpleasant, but familiar. There was comfort in familiar pain - precious normality in an otherwise abnormal situation. Just a little delayed. Everything’s fine now.

…there we are. You’re okay, Raven. I’m here. You're not alone.  

He made a quiet noise, unable to fully convey how grateful he was with his brain all frozen up, thoughts scattered like a hurricane had smashed through his skull at category five. He flattened his hands against his chest as his breathing began to ease. He could feel his heart trying to smash its way through his sternum, making him feel a little lightheaded. He should probably stay lying down for a bit. 

At least roll under the bed. The floor’s cold, Raven…

He obeyed, if only because Ayre sounded so rattled. She always did after his episodes. He rolled until he was underneath the bed’s comforting, enclosed space that was the closest he was going to get to an AC Core, and pressed his cheek against Rusty’s jacket as he tangled himself back under his blankets and duvet to fight off the chill trying to sink into his bone marrow. 

He still shivered and trembled, and he felt sweaty and gross, but that was a problem to tackle much later, when his muscles didn’t feel like they’d been liquified. There was an exhausted edge to his thoughts, aimlessly bouncing around his skull, and he found himself thinking that it was lucky that had happened now and not in front of Flatwell or Rusty. If they knew he was this broken, then the rules of their arrangement might’ve been changed to be less generous towards him. 

You’re not broken, Raven. Just… just damaged. 

Was there a difference?

Ayre didn’t answer him. 

Slowly, C4-621’s body stopped trembling. Slowly, C4-621’s pulse lowered from the stratosphere. Slowly, C4-621 felt the splayed open parts of himself get neatly folded back within the lines that made up ‘Raven’, clumsily closing the blown open gaps with figurative black marker pen. He rubbed his arms absently. His right elbow felt bruised. He probably banged it repeatedly on the floor during his episode. 

God. He was so tired. 

I’m not surprised. Your mind never seems to let you rest. 

That’s how his implants were. They were either ON or OFF, and the control switch for that was nestled within his cerebral control implant. Not that disseminating the STOP command would help all that much, since it merely trapped C4-621 in an unthinking, paralysed state that was worse than the neverending horror show of his mind spitting back his various traumas at him. At least that brought something, at least that made him feel something. Better than an endless, eternal unthinking void where he couldn’t move or scream, unable to escape on his own. Even the mere thought of it made him feel ill. 

These augmentations… they’re cruel.

Ayre sounded terribly sad and unhappy. C4-621 immediately felt bad for causing it. 

No, don’t feel bad. None of this is your fault. None of it.

C4-621 wasn’t sure what to say to that. It wasn’t as if he could say with absolute certainty that it wasn’t his fault. C4-621 might’ve volunteered for these augmentations, might’ve been told the full scope of the pros and cons, and chose to take them anyway. Or, perhaps, they had functioned perfectly fine until the fateful day of his death-birthday, the irreversible damage done to his brain causing a cascade of failures in otherwise perfect implants. It could very well be all of his fault.

Raven… I… 

Ayre hesitated, then continued in a firmly determined tone:

I’ll see if there’s something I can do on my end, to help you have a night of peaceful sleep. It’s the least I can do, for all you’ve tried to do for me, for all the suffering you’ve endured, because of… the Coral. 

None of that was Ayre’s fault, though. 

Still, it’s something I want to do for you. We’re friends, aren’t we? 

Hesitantly, C4-621 nodded, feeling his cheek rub against Rusty’s jacket, the embroidered emblem of the snarling wolf rough against his skin. It was true - while she wasn’t a ‘buddy’ like Rusty had falsely proclaimed him to be, Ayre was definitely a friend. A close one. The only friend he’d ever managed to make by being himself. At this point, she felt as vital to him as a limb or his AC - her loss would devastate him. 

I hope that’ll be something we’ll never have to experience, Raven. Even when I return to my family… I want to stay with you, to remain friends with you. 

He wanted that too. 

Thank you, Raven. I’m glad… 

Ayre sighed softly, and he felt her give him the equivalent of a mental nudge, gentle and careful. 

Now, I think we should focus on helping you recover. That’d been a bad episode and it’s dawn… maybe you should take a shower? Walter said a hot shower helps humans after nightmares. 

That was true, Walter had said that. In fact, he usually frogmarched C4-621 to the shower cubicle after a bad nightmare or an episode, stern-faced yet concerned in his own brusque way. While the water didn’t wash away the anxiety, it did a lot to improve his mood and make him feel less… gross. Being traumatised made you sweat a lot, unfortunately, and C4-621 hated being sweaty. 

Then we have a plan. Let’s go, Raven.

Slowly, C4-621 crawled out from under the bed. He still felt sore and a little weak-limbed, but he was able to stand up under his own power and move around - provided he moved like his bones were made of cracked glass. He gathered up a towel and some toiletries, and after a long pause, reluctantly picked up the flightsuit Thumper had given him. 

It didn’t have Walter’s emblem, and C4-621 didn’t know how to sew or embroider. He’ll have to figure something out. 

He crammed his bare feet into his boots, and ducked down to reclaim Rusty’s jacket, slinging it over his shoulders without putting his arms in it. It was large enough that it hung off his slim shoulders like a short-poncho, and was warm all the same, the furry ruff tickling his jaw as he hugged the towel, toiletries and flightsuit to his chest and shuffled slowly out of his cell. 

Time to start his day.

Chapter Text

“He thought you were Raven.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

Flatwell frowned thoughtfully as the data log of the sortie from Rusty’s point of view played over the briefing table. It was standard that after a mission requiring an AC, the data logs of the sortie were uploaded for review - they didn’t have the benefit of endless resources or a fleet of R&D goons making new and better toys for them all. The only advantage they could improve was their skill and ruthless examination of their enemies’ tactics and bad habits, which meant a very thorough and exhaustive debrief. 

They were set up in his office, Ziyi snoring away on the sofa, having drowsed off at some point during Rusty’s recounting of his skirmish with V.I Freud. Rokumonsen was down in the infirmary, having limped in half an hour after Rusty had returned, battered but whole. He’d suffered a minor concussion, though, and Flatwell would rather be safe than sorry when it came to their AC pilots. 

It also meant that Flatwell could dedicate his full attention on Rusty and this intriguing… misunderstanding he’d inadvertently created. 

“...from his perspective, I suppose it’d make sense,” Flatwell said. “You didn’t speak, and your fighting style is similar to Raven’s, in more ways than one.”

“We favour the same kind of AC, so it’s no surprise,” Rusty conceded, but there was an unhappy edge to his voice, even if his expression remained perfectly neutral. His arms were crossed over his chest, his hip resting against the edge of the briefing table as he watched the data log’s video feed. It was currently showing the little game of hide-and-seek he and Freud had played amongst the ruins. 

“It’d be characteristic of Walter to have backup ACs for Raven to use.” Flatwell rubbed his jaw, wondering if that was the case. He’d have to ask Raven, if he’d be willing to part with that information. “And safe houses… it’s likely that Arquebus assumes Raven had managed to slip away to one of them, and return with a vengeance in a new backup AC.”

“Instead of one of their own faking their death to defect to the Liberation Front?” Rusty grumbled. “They didn’t find my body, you know…”

“Well…” Flatwell couldn’t help but laugh a little. Was that the source of Rusty’s sulkiness? Sore pride? “No offence, Rusty, but when Raven sets out to kill someone, he tends to be thorough about it.”

“Which… confuses me.” Rusty lowered his gaze with a small frown. “He knew I escaped, but he reported me as dead to Arquebus.” 

Flatwell was aware. They had intercepted the communique between Walter and Snail: they had said Rusty had been eliminated and would no longer be a ‘problem’. While the words had come from Walter, Raven hadn’t interjected or clarified. Flatwell had several theories on why they would lie about it, but ultimately it didn’t really matter. As far as the Vespers were concerned, Rusty had been eliminated, like all of those who Raven had a kill order on.

“If he said you escaped, he wouldn’t have been paid,” Flatwell said bluntly. “Since it seems the relationship between him and Arquebus broke down around then, it was a risk-free lie at the time.”

Rusty seemed conflicted over that, but Flatwell moved the conversation along before they could get bogged down with Rusty’s convoluted feelings on the matter.

“Regardless, the misunderstanding is out there now,” he said. “No doubt they’ve already disseminated ORTUS’s design to the rest of their troops and attributed it to Raven. The moment they see you, they’ll scramble to contain you…”

Rusty sighed. “You’re cooking up a scheme, aren’t you, Uncle?”  

“Of course I am. This is an opportunity.” Flatwell couldn’t help but smile. So rarely did things align so well for the Liberation Front. “Out of everyone on Rubicon, only you have the skill to mimic Raven on the battlefield. While we cement Ortus as Raven, their eyes will be squarely on you, wherever you go. That grants us the opportunity to keep Raven out of sight until the time is right.”

Rusty didn’t seem convinced. “You're not going to use him?"

“I said out of sight, not benched,” Flatwell drawled. Honestly, for a spy, Rusty could be a little too literal-minded at times. “The best way to hide something is to not hide it at all. While you become Raven, Raven will become someone else. It lines up perfectly: while STALKER is undergoing repairs, Raven can masquerade as another Liberation Front pilot. The disguise can be further sold by having him use that Old Gen AC gathering dust in hangar one.”

“The Pre-Fires BASHO?” Rusty let out a half-startled laugh. “Uncle, that thing’s a relic, even by BASHO standards.”

“A dangerous relic in skilled enough hands.” 

“I don’t know…” Rusty worried his bottom lip briefly. “Raven’s good, but… that thing’s a piece of junk. Will it even survive a skirmish?” 

“Well,” Flatwell crossed his arms and cocked his hip slightly, mimicking Rusty’s pose. “Why don’t we make a bet on it? I have a low-risk mission that Raven can handle tonight in that old relic, and we’ll see how he performs.”

“Alone?”

“You’ll shadow him,” Flatwell said. “To observe and to help in case he encounters difficulties.”

Rusty didn’t say anything at first, scrutinising Flatwell with an expression that was hard to decipher. While Flatwell didn’t expect Rusty to reject the plan, it was clear that there was something he wanted to say. While normally Flatwell would be able to preemptively guess what was on Rusty’s mind…

The truth was, his time in the Vespers had changed him. 

Rusty had always been driven, even as a child, and stubborn to boot. Once he got an idea in his head, it was nigh impossible to shake him from it, but he’d still been an empathetic and somewhat soft individual. It was why Flatwell had reached out to O’Keeffe prior to Rusty’s infiltration on Earth: he needed someone harsh, jaded and decisive to keep an eye on him, to cover for those moments where Rusty’s softness would damn him. 

He’d expected Rusty to return hardened, and he had, but at the same time, Flatwell could tell that he had internalised more than a few unpleasant things from the Vespers. There wasn’t anything overt that he could point out, but it’d be a throwaway comment, or a minor reaction to something - just, a jarring moment that had Flatwell internally leaning back and going hm.

“Are you sure…” Rusty began slowly, carefully. “That you can trust him with an AC so soon?”

Flatwell gave him a flat look.

“...I don’t trust Raven. I trust his sense of self-preservation,” he said. “I know his type, Rusty, and he’s a survivor. He needs us more than we need him, and he knows it.”

“But he’s loyal to Walter,” Rusty argued. 

“Yes, he is… which is why he won’t betray us.”

Flatwell turned to the briefing table to turn off the data log still playing, continuing to speak as he did so: “Raven agreed to work with us once I offered the possibility of rescuing Walter from the Factory, if the opportunity arose. So long as that carrot is dangled in front of him, he’ll do as he’s told.”

Rusty looked down at his feet, his brow furrowed. 

“...Uncle,” he said haltingly. “I just… I don’t know. Walter could’ve given him orders to carry on his mission without him, or…”

“Rusty.” Flatwell’s tone was sharp. “If we’re to work with Raven, we’ll need to trust him at least a little, otherwise I may as well just lock him up in the Warrens permanently. You’re not normally this inflexible.”

There was a taut pause, Rusty not quite meeting his gaze, a muscle in his jaw visibly working. Flatwell stared at him levelly, genuinely curious as to what was running through that foolish boy’s skull. He had a frank talk with him already about Raven, about how his dogged focus on the mercenary was bordering on unhealthy obsession, but he felt like he’d only scratched the surface of what was going on between them. 

Raven was easier to understand: he’d been lured in by the friendly hand Rusty had extended, and was understandably resentful and hurt at the deceitful ploy. For a wary, poorly socialised mercenary like him, he’d be nursing that grudge for a long while, and it’d make him far more cautious in accepting friendly overtures that didn’t have a clear ulterior motive he could understand attached. It was a personality type Flatwell had handled multiple times throughout his life, with O’Keeffe being one of the more complicated ones. 

Rusty, though? From the moment he worked alongside Raven at the Wall, he’d been fixed on him. Flatwell just couldn’t figure it out - did he have a crush? Did he clock Raven as a rival? Something else? It mystified him. 

“He’s dangerous,” Rusty finally muttered, his tone laced with frustration. “We don’t know what he wants. He always picked jobs seemingly at random, no matter the pay, and… then there’s the Gallia Dam thing.”

Gallia Dam, where Raven had, at the drop of the hat, turned on his two Redgun allies and shot them soundly in the back without hesitation. From an independent mercenary’s point of view, it had been an utterly insane move - even if the RLF had offered double, Raven had risked permanently ruining his relationship with Balam for that stunt.

“And what he did with Swinburne,” Rusty continued. 

Swinburne, where Raven had pretended to accept his surrender, only to ruthlessly punch through the Vesper’s Core and kill him the second his shield and guard had been lowered. An expedient way of dealing with the man, in Flatwell’s opinion, even if it had surprised everyone watching.

“And him turning on Michigan,” Rusty finished. “He liked Michigan. He deliberately chose that mission despite you offering him another one.” 

Michigan, where, if the stories were true, Raven had single handedly destroyed the remnants of the Redgun’s MT forces and LIGERTAIL without a shred of mercy. Not even Flatwell had expected it - not because of Raven’s supposed fondness of Michigan, but because Flatwell knew Walter and Michigan had history that dated back decades. Why hadn’t Walter rejected the job offer as Raven’s handler? 

“He’s inconsistent.” Rusty finally looked up, his expression determined. “He doesn’t have a clear purpose. With how strong he is… it’s too dangerous to trust him. We don’t know what he’ll do, in the end. He isn’t one of us, Uncle.” 

Flatwell waited for a moment, letting the silence stretch between them. 

“If that’s how you truly feel,” he finally said, “then why didn’t you kill him on the ice fields?”

Rusty visibly faltered. 

“It would’ve been easy,” Flatwell continued, his tone perfectly mild. “His AC was critically damaged and he had no way to defend himself. You could’ve killed him quickly and humanely, and that would’ve been the end of it.”

“I… no, it… it wouldn’t…” Rusty muttered, barely audible.

“Why not?” Flatwell pressed. “If you’re convinced that he’s a threat so dangerous we cannot even consider trusting him to fight alongside us, then why didn’t you kill him? Nothing was stopping you.”

Rusty looked away and said nothing. 

“Answer me, Rusty.”

“I…” Rusty gritted his teeth. “I don’t know. I…”

He struggled with himself for a moment, his eyes stormy with emotion. 

“I thought about it, when I found him,” he finally admitted. “I thought about it, Uncle. It would’ve been the logical choice. It would’ve made sense…”

Rusty sighed and pushed himself away from the table. He ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in random directions. 

“But…” His gaze dipped low. “When I had him in my sights, when those Arquebus LCs had him cornered, I just… couldn’t help but think he deserved better than dying alone in the middle of a frozen wasteland. Raven’s a merciless killer, Uncle, but when we worked together, I saw… glimpses of something more under there.”

“So, you rescued him instead,” Flatwell said slowly, following the thread of Rusty’s logic and finding himself both exasperated and amused at his quick conclusion. “Because you wanted to know this dangerous independent mercenary better - to know his true self.”

“You make me sound stupid when you put it like that,” Rusty muttered. 

“Rusty.” Flatwell reached out, settling his hand on his broad shoulder. When Rusty sheepishly met his gaze, he said: “You are kind of stupid.” 

“...thanks, Uncle.”

“You rescued Raven instead of killing him, because you recognised that there’s potential in him,” Flatwell said, ignoring Rusty’s growing sulkiness. “But, now that you have him, you keep flipflopping between wanting to be close to him, and condemning him as being too dangerous to trust.”

Rusty opened his mouth - only to close it slowly without saying anything. 

“Aren’t you being a little inconsistent too?” Flatwell pulled his hand away, only to gently cuff Rusty around the ears. “It seems like you don’t know what you want either.”

“...I guess,” Rusty mumbled, rubbing his head. 

“You need to have a good, long think on what you want with Raven,” Flatwell said, his tone shifting into something more serious. “To decide if you’re willing to take a chance on him or not. What you’re doing right now… giving Raven mixed signals is just going to confuse him and damage any chance of having a working relationship with him.”

Rusty sighed and nodded, silently conceding the point. 

“Good. Now that’s settled, you should get some rest,” Flatwell said. “You worked hard today, fighting Freud as you did.”

“I had the advantage of sparring him before, so I knew what to expect.” Rusty, unsurprisingly, deflected the praise. “But I’m fine, Uncle. I’m not that tired, and we still need to discuss your plan about Rav-”

“Really. You’re not tired?” Flatwell interrupted. “Funny you say that, considering those heavy eyebags of yours. When was the last time you slept?”

Rusty didn’t even blink or hesitate: “About ten-”

“Don’t lie.”

“-nnnenty eight hours go,” he mumbled. 

“Tennenty eight hours,” Flatwell repeated in a low drawl. “I’ve never heard that number before.”

Rusty groaned. “Uncle…”

“To bed with you, Rusty.” Flatwell ushered him towards the door, ignoring the overgrown child’s huffing and grumbling. His tone lilted teasingly; “Or do you need me to tuck you in with Wolfy? Tell you your favourite bedtime story about the hare and the-”

“I’m in my thirties, Uncle!” Rusty snapped, his ears turning red as he stomped out of the briefing room in a flustered huff. Flatwell laughed at his retreating back, amused at how easily embarrassed he was about Wolfy. Not even the Vespers could change him that much, it seemed. 

“Silly boy,” Flatwell said fondly, before closing the door and turning around. “Now then, Ziyi, how long were you eavesdropping for?”

Ziyi’s unnaturally still body twitched slightly, and she squinted an eye open to peer up at him cautiously. Seeing that he didn’t seem disapproving of her earwigging, she pushed herself up onto an elbow, her expression becoming rather dry. 

“Heard enough to know that Rusty’s got it bad for our local merc,” she said, with her usual, refreshing bluntness. “We should just lock them in a closet together and let them sort it out that way, Uncle.” 

“I fear they’re both a bit too oblivious for that to go well,” Flatwell hummed, rubbing his jaw. “Well, I remember the first time I had an ill-advised crush on an ex-enemy. I think it’s a vital milestone in any young man’s life.”

“Uh huh,” Ziyi said in a tone that plainly said ‘more like any young freak’s life, but you do you, Uncle’. “Sure. But, uh, Uncle… are you sure it’s fine? Rusty’s right, we really can’t trust that merc. His loyalty’s bought, not earned.”

“We don’t have to trust him to squeeze some use out of him,” Flatwell said. “In my line of work, you learn that occasionally you have to lean on the unreliable sort… sometimes they’ll surprise you when you’ll least expect it. In a good way, I mean.”

“Hmm.”

“Besides, Raven reminds me of someone…” Flatwell admitted. “Call it nostalgia, or a gut feeling but… I feel like this is the right path to take.” 

He scoffed abruptly. 

“After all, what’s the alternative?” he drawled. “Chain him up in the basement? Take him out back and shoot him? Send him out to die in the wilderness?”

Ziyi, very pointedly, said nothing as she inspected her nails very closely. 

“I forget what a ruthless little tiger you are,” Flatwell said, wondering when his kids grew up to be such vicious, jaded things. “Anyway, enough talk. You should go rest too.”

“Alright, Uncle,” Ziyi said, being obedient just to be contrary to Rusty’s fussiness. She threw her legs over the side of the sofa and stood up, pausing to stretch, but she was eyeing Flatwell in a way that said she wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure how to phrase it. Flatwell patiently waited her out. 

“Uncle…” she said as she lowered herself out of her stretch. “If that merc does end up betraying us…”

“I’ll handle it,” Flatwell said solemnly. 

Ziyi nodded, content with that, and left. Flatwell turned back to the briefing table and walked over to it, frowning broodingly at its scratched and pitted surface. Easier said than done, to say he'll handle it. Truth of the matter was that if this went south, if Raven betrayed them, there was very little they could do about it. They'd just have to try their best to win the battle of Raven's heart and mind, appeal to whatever compassion and better nature laid buried beneath several layers of violent trauma and dehumanisation. The whole thing was, in short, a very risky gamble, but wasn't everything nowadays? 

“This really would’ve been easier if you had killed him, Rusty,” Flatwell murmured. “But, admittedly, I’m glad you didn’t. It shows that the Vespers didn’t manage to kick the compassion out of you.” 

And if it meant Flatwell had to help Rusty handle the mess he’d accidentally made, well…

That’s what fathers were for.

C4-621 stifled a yawn into his towel, drowsily shuffling his way from the showers back to his room. His hair was damp, making him feel chilled despite the warm jacket he had slung around his shoulders, and his arms were occupied carrying the loose bundle of pyjamas and toiletries wrapped in a damp towel. The shower had gone a long way in easing the lingering anxiety and rattled nerves from his nightmare and panic attack, but on its heels came a bone-deep exhaustion that had him practically sleepwalking through the corridors. 

It was a trap, though. He knew that if he tried slithering back into bed to try sleeping again, an even more vivid and upsetting nightmare would come lunging out of the mental woodwork. Instead, he compiled a short list of objectives that he needed to complete today: 

First, get breakfast, since C4-621 remembered it for once. Second, find Flatwell to discuss a meal plan. Third, sort through the kit Thumper gave him and organise it properly. Fourth… 

He was stumped at that point. What could he do after all that…?

Perhaps ask Flatwell if there’re any other duties you can attend to?

C4-621 wasn’t capable of doing anything but piloting an AC, though. It was all he had done in his previous role, and it was all he did as Walter’s Hound. If there was no AC to pilot, then he was useless, and if he was useless, then he was an unwanted burden, and if he was an unwanted burden, then he was disposable, and if he was disposable-

Raven, you’re not unwanted or useless. 

He exhaled shortly, pausing at a corner to peer around it cautiously before taking it. He didn’t want a repeat of accidentally ploughing into someone again - especially in case it was Rusty, since that’s just how his luck ran nowadays. 

I think it’s a chance to… branch out, maybe. As you say, you don’t know how to do much outside of piloting. Maybe you can learn a new skill. Broaden your horizons. Obtain a hobby.

That didn’t sound useful.

 Or, ah, specialise in something other than piloting to increase your… um, ‘marketability’?

C4-621 actually considered that. Marketability… he heard that some mercenaries did learn some esoteric skills or specialisations outside of simple AC piloting, and if he was going to continue repaying his debt while being on starvation wages - in a manner of speaking - with the RLF, then he’d need to increase his income somehow. What skills would count as ‘marketable’ though, as an independent mercenary on a blockaded planet?

Good question… 

It was something to think about. 

Something to do with supply, maybe? Food shortages seem common here.

C4-621 didn’t know the first thing about food resupply or the chain of labour involved in that. Food just appeared. It was like how his AC always had ammunition or new parts for every mission, or how there was power in the garage despite the local electric grid being decimated after decades of misuse and neglect. These things just existed for C4-621’s convenience, and he never had to think once about where it came from or how it came to be. Why would he? That was Walter’s job.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for you, then, to learn about it. Doesn’t it sound useful, to know where food comes from, and how to feed yourself in case you need to part ways from the Liberation Front one day?

Hmm.

As C4-621 pondered the mystery of food production on a decimated planet and how one went about learning such things, he paused at the last corner leading to his room and peered around it - only to do a double take at seeing Flatwell striding up the corridor, away from his room and towards him.

C4-621 didn’t really get a chance to respond or retreat. Flatwell spotted him immediately, and raised a hand in greeting as he widened his long stride to catch up to him.

“Raven, I’m glad I caught you. I was just at your…”

Flatwell trailed off once he drew close, his friendly expression falling into a sharp frown as he stared intently at C4-621’s face. C4-621 just went very still, clutching his bundle to his chest as he wondered what he’d done wrong in the few seconds between Flatwell seeing him and approaching him. He hadn’t moved. Was that the wrong thing? Was it that he hadn’t been in his room? He thought he was allowed to leave it now? It hadn’t been locked? Had it been a test? Shit, less than twenty-four hours and C4-621 was already violating rules.

“What happened to your face?” Flatwell asked, cutting through C4-621’s increasingly catastrophising thoughts. 

…

His face?

Oh, he means your… injury. After your nightmare.

Oh. 

C4-621 blinked, still feeling a little jittery from his pulse rocketing to the stratosphere in the span of a split second, and looked down in the bundle in his hands. He couldn’t use them. He couldn’t answer. He shifted his weight anxiously. 

“Ah, right…” Flatwell cleared his throat. “I apologise. Allow me to rephrase: did someone hit you?”

C4-621, still staring at his bundle, shook his head. 

“I see…” Flatwell sounded a little dubious, but after studying him with a far less severe look, seemingly accepted the answer. “Well, that’s one impressive black eye and cut there. You should go to the infirmary to have it checked out at least.”

C4-621 would rather crawl into the ventilation system and live there for a week than go to the infirmary, but didn’t react or respond. Flatwell had phrased it as a suggestion, not an order, so C4-621 will ignore it. 

Flatwell sighed to himself. “You as well…”

C4-621 peeked up at him, puzzled by the murmur, but Flatwell was already standing aside, gesturing back the way he came. 

“I’ll let you return your clothes to your room,” he said. “But after that, we need to have a discussion about your role here in the Liberation Front. I may have a job for you that you’ll be interested in.”

C4-621 perked up cautiously, and followed Flatwell down the corridor. 

“It’s a piloting job, too,” Flatwell added, igniting C4-621’s interest further. “And it’ll require you to deploy this late afternoon. So long as you’re fine with such short notice.”

C4-621 nodded vigorously, all while wondering what he’d be piloting, as STALKER was still undergoing repairs. Not even the workers back at Walter’s garage could fix such extensive damage in such a short time frame, and they usually had plenty of spare parts and supplies on hand. A backup AC, perhaps? An MT? He’ll take anything at this point.

Flatwell smiled briefly. “I thought you would be. Well, I’ll go over the details at breakfast. We may as well eat while we talk shop.”

…it seems like they’re not letting you rest for a full week after all.

Ayre, oddly, sounded a little put-off, but C4-621 was just too relieved that he didn’t have to wait a week after all before piloting again. He wasn’t useless or a burden! It was as if a massive weight had been hauled off his chest and shoulders, letting him breathe far easier.

Finally, things were beginning to feel familiar again. 

A roundtrip to the canteen, one bowl of runny porridge and a short talk later, and C4-621 was re-evaluating his earlier excitement. 

«You want Rusty to steal my identity?»

“Not steal, borrow,” Flatwell corrected gently. They were seated in the far corner of the canteen, C4-621 with his back to the wall and Flatwell across from him. Unlike last night, the room was busier with a steady traffic of people coming and going - which meant plenty of rubberneckers who weren’t very good at hiding their interest in who their leader was talking to. 

C4-621 didn’t really like it - he usually ate his meals in private, or with one or two people in attendance, so his porridge was left mostly untouched, cooled to something lukewarm as he unenthusiastically pushed it around the bowl. Flatwell was staring intently at it, his frown increasing fractionally with each useless stir C4-621 did. 

“If you’re uncomfortable with it, we won’t go through with it, of course,” Flatwell said, instead of commenting on C4-621’s compulsive porridge stirring. “But you should be aware that Arquebus thinks Rusty is you, and will continue to think that until STALKER is fit to deploy.”

«In a week,» C4-621 said. 

“Approximately a week.” Flatwell cleared his throat. “It is dependent on whether our shipment of lightweight armour comes through from the western BAWS foundry. Your AC requires an alloy lighter than what myself and Rusty run, and our supply transports have to pick and choose their routes carefully.”

C4-621 frowned. 

«...it’s not as if Raven was mine in the first place,» he finally admitted.

At this, Flatwell linked his fingers together and rested his elbows on the edge of the table, peering at him intently. C4-621 avoided his gaze, stirring and stirring his untouched porridge while his other hand anxiously tapped the casing of his communication device. 

“You made it yours, through your efforts and deeds,” Flatwell murmured. “I’m aware that you stole your licence from the original Raven - in fact, I’d say it was an open secret on Rubicon, but it does make me curious… is ‘Raven’ who you wish to be? Or is it simply a mask you’re prepared to discard once your mission is done on this planet?”

C4-621 set his spoon down. 

«I’m C4-621,» was all he said to that. 

“That doesn’t really answer my question.”

«I’m C4-621.»

Flatwell sighed and leaned back in his seat.

“You’re hard to understand,” he admitted ruefully. “But, alright… C4-621. Are you willing to let Rusty borrow your callsign temporarily? I promise it won’t be a permanent arrangement.”

C4-621 rolled his shoulders, surprised at how reluctant he was to offer consent, even though he knew that Flatwell was only asking to be polite. C4-621 knew better than to disagree and fall into that trap, but he still found it oddly difficult to just simply go along with it. Flatwell was right, he did make Raven his, even though it was a name lifted off what he thought was a charred corpse. 

‘Raven’ had a different weight to it than C4-621, which had also never been his, truly, just another identity lifted from another corpse, pasted over the remains of Asset 04 who had never really been him either. He has only ever squatted within the carcasses of others, pulling their rotting skin over him like a shroud and peering through their eyeless eyes, hoping no one would notice how hollow the persona was if they stared at it too long. 

Who do you wish to be?

Is it simply a mask?

—- had no idea who he was or who he wished to be, but he liked 621 and Raven, even if at times their corpses hung a little too heavy or didn’t move right. He tried his best to make them fit, though. He really tried his best. He wanted to be them so badly. He wanted to be a person so badly, but he had no idea how to be one without pitiful imitation setting the foundations down first.

He was being too possessive, he supposed. He can loan it out. If Rusty wanted to be Raven for a bit, then C4-621 will let him have it. Wasn’t it a little hypocritical for him to cling to something he’d stolen like it’d been his from the start? C4-621 still found it hard to let go, though.

«Okay,» he said. 

“Are you sure?” Flatwell asked slowly. He was scrutinising him closely, and C4-621 had to fight the urge to climb under the table to hide from his piercing stare. “You don’t seem comfortable over the idea.”

«I stole that identity. It was never mine to begin with and I have no emotional attachment to it.»

“Hm,” Flatwell tapped his finger against the edge of the table. His expression said ‘I know you’re lying’, but he didn’t voice it. He just looked at him, like he was a bizarre alien bug he’d found under a rock somewhere. “If that’s how you feel…”

Raven…

«And it’s temporary,» he added, ignoring Ayre’s concerned murmur. «If Rusty does a bad job, I’ll claim it back.»

Flatwell let out a short, half-surprised laugh. “Well… I can’t argue with that.”

C4-621 picked up his spoon again, idly prodding at his porridge. 

“Which brings me to the next part of this plan,” Flatwell said as C4-621 chanced a very cautious bite of cold porridge. “How do you feel about piloting a BASHO AC?”

C4-621 stopped, spoon halfway to his mouth. 

“It wouldn’t do to let you sit out while Rusty commits crimes against corporations in your name.” Flatwell smiled. “You may need a day or two to adjust to the new body plan, but the BASHO does allow for Old Gen interfacing-” 

C4-621 almost knocked his communication device off the table in his haste to respond: «y eS!»

Flatwell blinked, comically flatfooted for a moment. 

“...yes?” he repeated a little blankly. 

C4-621 looked him right in the eyes, to convey the seriousness of his next words: «I love BASHO ACs. I think their design is cute.»

Never before had C4-621 seen a man look so utterly lost, even if for a moment. Flatwell quickly mastered his dumbfoundedness, however, shaking his head with a disbelieving chuckle. C4-621 didn’t know what was so amusing though: BASHO ACs were a cute design, and it was a hill he had defended once before when the subject had come up with Walter. 

(Thinking on it, he’d reacted much like Flatwell…)

“Every time I think I have you figured out, you spring another unexpected surprise.” Flatwell smiled. “I can see what Rusty meant, about wanting to know…”

He trailed off, and C4-621 gave him a questioning look. 

“Ah, I’ll let him tell you himself, if he ever gathers the courage,” Flatwell said a little impishly. “But I’m glad we’ve worked something out. The AC will be ready for deployment this afternoon, but it should be ready for pre-deployment tests by noon. Come down to hangar one around then.”

Flatwell pushed himself up from his seat, peering down at C4-621 consideringly. 

“Also…”

His smile turned into a slight smirk.

“Try to think of a callsign of your own. If you’re deploying in that BASHO, it’ll have to be as someone other than ‘Raven’.” 

Chapter Text

Despite his exhaustion, Rusty struggled to sleep. 

It wasn’t anything new, though. Ever since he got his augmentations ten years ago, sleep had become something incredibly elusive and distorted. He’d lost the ability to feel truly rested after that day, and while before he hadn’t been a stranger to unpleasant nightmares or the anxiety that tread closely on the heels of disturbed sleep, this was something else entirely: a new circle of Hell. 

(“You get used to it,” O’Keeffe had said once, unprompted. “Trick is to try and solve a Sudoku puzzle or something before going to sleep. Your brain will carry it on instead of kicking open your skeleton closet.”

“No offence,” Rusty had drawled, “but doing maths in my sleep sounds just as terrible as what I’ve got going on right now.”

“You’re young. You’ll understand after a few more years.”)

Annoyingly, O’Keeffe had been right. The missions the Vespers had put Rusty through had given him a deep appreciation for brain teaser puzzles before bed. Which was why instead of trying (and failing) to sleep, he was curled up in his bed, half-lidded eyes focused on the screen of his phone, where his stupid Sudoku app was open with one of the 16x16 grids that required both numbers and letters to complete. 

The advantage of augmentations was that it helped the human brain carry out calculations faster and more accurately than an unaugmented person could. Apparently the Old Gens were in an entirely different league of their own, with rumours that they didn’t even need FCS to calculate trajectory and angle of their firearms during the heat of battle, able to compute such things on the fly faster than the actual computer. Rusty, after hearing that, had tried it once, but the strain of forcing his implants to work at such speeds with such high accuracy in conjunction with everything else in his AC had almost given him a stroke. 

Literally: he almost had a stroke.

It made him wonder if it was even true about the Old Gens, or if the Coral really was that much of a game changer. Rusty could admit he wasn’t very well-informed on the exact ins and outs of what, exactly, Coral did when imbued into technology or organic tissue, but the general consensus was that it a) produced tremendous amounts of energy even in small amounts and b) could contain vast amounts of data and transport it near-instantaneously. 

No doubt an Old Gen could solve this Sudoku puzzle in less than a minute, while Rusty was struggling to fill one grid. 

wonder if raven does sudoku, his groggy mind mused, as the numbers and letters in their little perfect squares started to blur and scramble a little. As an Old Gen, he probably suffered from the same insomnia, right? He knew Uncle did, though god knows what he did to get some form of rest. 

He recalled Raven curled up under his bed, trembling and jerking from whatever nightmare he’d been trapped in, and grimaced. No, he probably suffered from something worse than insomnia. 

Probably like O’Keeffe then, who despite telling him “you get used to it” always seemed to avoid sleep like the plague. Always exhausted, that old spy, always slept in short, fitful starts that never lasted more than five minutes at a time. Rusty remembered sitting across from him in a transporter before, and O’Keeffe had nodded off about thirty times in the span of an hour, each microsleep lasting only twenty seconds at a time. 

He didn’t know if it was like that for the true New Gens. Snail apparently didn’t sleep according to O’Keeffe, but Pater and Maeterlink never seemed to suffer from insomnia - Pater, especially, always slept like a baby on long-haul transporter flights. Maybe it was something only the most modern generations never had to worry about…

we’re all sleep deprived, he realised, no wonder most augmented humans are batshit insane.

Wasn’t there a study before about how sleep deprivation caused the most damage to a human being? Not only mentally, but physically?

Rusty rolled onto his other side, barely focusing on his phone screen now as his half-asleep brain latched onto this subject like a dog with a bone. It really was like humans, though, wasn’t it? Discovering something that enhanced a part of them at severe detriment to everything else - but why should they care, right? The elites back on Earth didn’t have to suffer these effects, just their chosen grunts who carried out their agendas across the galaxy. True, Gen Ten augmentations were seemingly perfect, preserving total humanity while giving them all the benefits, but Pater… 

He was V.VII for a reason. Whatever benefits the augmentations gave him, Rusty never really experienced it in their simulated spars, and Pater only climbed up a rank thanks to Swinburne’s ‘untimely’ death. As for V.II Snail, he only clawed his way into that position because he was a snake and knew how to scheme his way into the most advantageous position: a legitimate way to rise the ranks in the Vespers, but still, that was a trait innate to Snail, it wasn’t enhanced by his augmentations at all despite his obsession with continuously ‘improving’ them. 

But Raven had ancient augmentations in comparison, highly experimental ones too, from the looks of things. His skill as a pilot was unparalleled, but… was that just how Raven was like, or was that thanks to his Coral-infused augmentations? If the New Gens barely gave any sort of benefit to their users, then had humanity really managed to “move past” Coral for self-improvement?

If that was true, then why were they back here on Rubicon, desperately digging into the ashes to snatch fistfuls of it from the planet’s charred corpse? Why did Arquebus sink billions into this illegal venture, risking sanctions from the UEG and suffering from unrecoverable losses in terms of manpower and equipment on the off-chance that maybe there was a Coral reserve they could exploit on Rubicon, all while having the PCA, Balam and the RLF breathe down their necks?

If Earth didn’t need Coral anymore, why were the corporations here? Why were they allowed to be here?

And, more importantly… 

Rusty rolled over again, following the hazy thread of that thought. Before everything went pear-shaped in the Depths, Snail had called a Vesper meeting about Raven while said mercenary was busy throwing himself down an elevator shaft having lasers shot at him. At the time, Rusty hadn’t thought much about the content of the meeting since he’d been distracted by bigger, more urgent things immediately afterwards, but in his sleepy, half-aware state, his brain couldn’t help but circle round to it again: 

(“Arquebus HQ has weighed in on the Raven problem,” O’Keeffe said, his expression unreadable as usual. But Rusty could see there was an edge of tension there, and his gaze was distracted as he uploaded the data logs onto the briefing table. 

“Wasn’t aware he was a problem so long as we kept paying him,” Rusty dared to say. 

Snail made a low, irritable noise. “That isn’t something we can maintain in the long term, especially as that mutt’s master wants to claim a portion of the Coral for himself. That Coral is ours - is Arquebus’s . We will not tolerate scavengers trying to muscle in on corporate property.”

“Easier said than done,” Hawkins said. “He’s tough. If we want to bring him down, we’ll need to surprise him… or gang up on him with V.I taking the lead.” 

Speaking of Freud, the man was conspicuously absent from the meeting. This wasn’t unusual in and of itself, but Snail’s expression visibly tightened, which made Rusty wonder if his exclusion was intentional. Rusty had heard that Snail had been running interference as Freud became more and more restless to fight Raven himself.

“Or perhaps…  recruit him?” Pater suggested hopefully. “I quite like Raven. He’s a very calm and professional individual, and we do have a new opening in our ranks.”

Swinburne. Pater didn’t sound too choked up about it, and while Hawkins frowned slightly, no one else amongst the Vespers was bothered by the reminder. Swinburne had been… not thought of fondly by the rest of them.

“Furthermore, we’ve cultivated a positive work relationship with him. Mostly thanks to V.IV’s friendly approach,” Pater continued, clearly warming up to the idea. “Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if Raven would join just to stay at V.IV’s side.”

Pater’s tone was teasing, but his smile was slightly wicked as he glanced over at Rusty, clearly implying something with his words. Rusty kept his expression mild, even though he was abruptly aware of Snail’s gaze boring into the side of his head with enough intensity to almost burn. Even O’Keeffe looked a little displeased as he took out a cigarette. 

“What’re you trying to say, Pater?” Rusty asked lightly. “That I’m a honeytrap for wandering mercs? Damn, I’m flattered you think I’m so attractive, but you’re not my ty-”

“You are very friendly with him,” Maeterlinck interrupted as Pater turned a little red at Rusty’s quip. She had mostly observed the conversation for the most part, but finally weighed in with that slow, measured voice of hers. “And from what I’ve observed in studying Raven, he seems receptive to you in a way that he isn’t with anyone else. Haven’t you noticed that he tends to favour missions where he ends up working with you, no matter the pay?”

Hawkins rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Now that you mention it… yeah. Huh, I think Raven might be sweet on you, Rusty.”

“He… really isn’t,” Rusty said in a slightly strained tone. “Look, I know things have been hard without access to television here, but you don’t have to imagine soap opera dramas where there aren’t any.”

“You know, I also recall how you gallantly swept in to rescue Raven during the spaceport operation despite being told to not help him,” Pater said, always ready to stir the pot for his own personal amusement. When Rusty slanted an irritated look his way, Pater’s smile was sweet as anything. “Granted, the Ice Worm sort of ruined the mood at the end there…”

“He made up for it by trying his best to look cool with the rail cannon, though,” Hawkins said, starting to grin. He always got swept up by Pater’s antics, and Rusty scowled in response. “I bet that got Raven hot and bothered.”

“Right? They even snuck off together afterwards! Weren’t seen for over an hour or so, very scandalous. Maybe-”

“Enough.” Snail slapped a hand against the table, cutting through the banter instantly. “I didn’t call you here to gossip about something so inane.”

“We won’t be recruiting Raven,” O’Keeffe added, his expression stony. Rusty couldn’t help but find that odd, even as he fought down his own humiliated embarrassment. O’Keeffe normally would’ve been egging Pater and Hawkins on, but instead he just seemed annoyed at the topic.  

“We won’t?” Pater looked briefly disappointed. “Ah, a pity…” 

“Did HQ deem him too dangerous?” Maeterlinck asked. 

O’Keeffe made a short, bitterly amused noise as he pressed a button on the briefing table, showing a diagram of STALKER. After scrounging battlefields for data logs from the mercenary’s victims, they had managed to compile a profile of sorts on the AC itself, detailing vulnerable points and the like.

“Arquebus HQ specifically stated they wanted him as a subject, not a Vesper,” O’Keeffe leaned back in his seat, taking a long draw from his cigarette. “He’s to be taken alive at any cost and shipped back to Earth for ADD to deal with. If any one of us accidentally kills him, we’ll get the chop.”

“As for why, they didn’t deign to share their reasons with us,” Snail said curtly. Ah, that explained his sour mood. Snail always hated being the grunt in any interaction. “But I’d rather not have an itchy trigger finger condemn us because of that brain-dead mutt. When we must spring the trap to capture him, keep that in mind.”

There was a mix of confusion and wariness on everyone’s faces at that, but they silently nodded to show they understood. Rusty, meanwhile, felt something curdle in his gut, a growing sense of intense unease as he tried to catch O’Keeffe’s eye to get some sort of explanation. 

Taken in as a subject? Raven was a Gen Four, what could ADD possibly gain in studying his outdated augmentations?

“Additionally, no matter what V.I says, do not allow him the chance to ‘test his skills’ against Raven,” Snail added, looking even more disgruntled. “That man doesn’t know the meaning of ‘restraining himself’.” 

“Question,” Hawkins said, holding his hand up. “If he’s to be kept alive, why did we pay him to jump down an elevator shaft to get shot at repeatedly by a giant laser?”

“It was his Handler’s idea,” O’Keeffe answered. “And if he didn’t do it for us, he would’ve done it for Balam instead. Guy’s a cockroach, anyways. Nothing short of a tactical nuclear strike will kill him, so don’t worry about it.”

“Yet it would do us good to exercise some caution,” Snail said sharply. “Now, bring your attention to the image before you. After some careful consideration, we have identified various weak points in STALKER’s design that can non-lethally disable him.”

Snail gestured briefly, and the image of STALKER zoomed in towards the Core, splitting it apart to show its internal components. The processing centre - also known colloquially as the AC’s ‘brain’ - situated just behind the pilot cockpit began to flash.

“Such as this, for example. A severe flaw in the Gen Four’s synchronisation process with their AC opens them up to extreme sensitivity to electrical overload, as they’re wired into the processing centre, rather than remotely connected. While STALKER is installed with various grounding protocols, they can be easily overwhelmed with the VE-60SNA stun needle launcher; however, using a VP-67EB stun baton or a VP-66EG stun gun will suffice, albeit requiring sustained application to achieve that which the VE-60SNA can in a single shot. Furthermore…”

Rusty sighed silently under his breath as Snail droned on, leaning back in his seat as the Vespers professionally focused on memorising everything about STALKER and how to go about non-lethally disabling it. Easier said than done, Raven wasn’t going to just stand around and let them overload his AC with something as cumbersome as the VE-60SNA or short-ranged as the VP-67EB and VP-66EG. 

He glanced at O’Keeffe, but the old spy wasn’t looking at him, frowning at the wall. Something was on his mind, something really heavy, and Rusty had an itching feeling it had to do with Raven. Maybe he was just as troubled as Rusty over the implication of all this?

…either way, he supposed it was out of his hands, whatever happened. Rusty’s goal was so close he could practically touch it, and… well, as much as he liked Raven, Rubicon came first. It’d hurt, a little, to have to betray him if the Vespers ever gave the order for him to do a capture and retrieval, but Raven wouldn’t be the first. Rusty had learned how to easily cut off attachment during his infiltration of Earth and the Vespers, and Raven would be the same. He’d try his best to remember him though, like all the others. 

Still, if he could manage it…

Maybe he’d ‘accidentally’ flub it, and give Raven a clean death instead of whatever horrors would await him in ADD. He might suffer a demotion or two, and a sharp slap on the wrist, but he doubted the punishment would be as bad as O’Keeffe implied. 

Why would it, when the Coral was well within Arquebus’s reach? A strange Gen Four was basically nothing in the grand scheme of things, compared to that.)

That whole meeting had been so strange. Why did ADD want Raven…?

The question lingered in Rusty’s mind as his eyes slipped shut despite the glare of his phone’s screen, even though his mind continued to churn. It had been after that briefing that O’Keeffe had pulled him aside and told him about Overseer, even if he’d been very vague on his sources regarding that information. Arquebus didn’t know that, though - Snail would’ve mentioned it in the brief and rescinded the ‘keep alive’ order. He would’ve ordered Raven killed - immediately.

…

…wait. 

Thinking about it, why didn’t O’Keeffe tell the other Vespers? 

Rusty frowned, retrospection making him realise that that was- really out of character for O’Keeffe. Yeah, he kept things secret from the Vespers when it came to Rusty and his connections to the RLF, but everything else? O’Keeffe was a corporate mercenary through-and-through. He only helped Rusty out because of… whatever weird history he had with Uncle, but personally O’Keeffe didn’t give a shit about Rubicon. He’d even told that to Rusty’s face once when he’d unwisely asked: “I really fucking hate that planet”, he said with a heatedness that implied a five kilometre square minefield around the whole subject, “I don’t know why Flatwell fucking bothers with it.”  

Rusty rolled onto his back and opened his eyes, abruptly wide awake now that his brain had picked up this whole strangeness and sprinted into the horizon with it. Why didn’t O’Keeffe tell the others? Overseer wasn’t just a danger to the RLF - it was a danger to everyone within the entire Rubicon system. Whoever had the Coral wouldn’t have mattered if they all got blown up and incinerated in the process. But O’Keeffe hadn’t said anything, let Raven get dangerously close to the Convergence - he’d basically been right on top of it! 

But instead, O’Keeffe told Rusty, and only Rusty. 

His mind had already figured out why, but it took Rusty a moment to really acknowledge it. He picked up his phone and closed the Sudoku app, opening up his photo gallery. Various vistas and interesting horizons filled it, but he had a few random shots of the Vespers - usually incidentally, as he was taking vista shots. O’Keeffe was in one, standing at the railing of a balcony, the sunset of an extrasolar colony in the distance, flushing the sky with streaks of bruised purples and deep reds. 

O’Keeffe was the only one who knew of Rusty’s capabilities. O’Keeffe was also clever enough to know that out of all the Vespers, bar Freud, Rusty had the greatest chance to eliminate Raven. O’Keeffe knew Rusty would strictly stick to orders from Snail, though, while maintaining his cover, and unless things managed to fall luckily in place for him to plead it as an accident, Rusty wouldn’t have killed Raven. He might’ve actually tried to let him go, if he could spin it. 

A calculated ploy: the Vespers wouldn’t kill Raven while Arquebus HQ demanded his live capture, and Snail would be keeping Freud on a very short leash. If O’Keeffe told them about Overseer, Snail would’ve demanded to know his source, and considering how O’Keeffe had stonewalled Rusty’s attempts to get even the vaguest detail about it, Snail would’ve dismissed the warnings if he didn’t know where they came from. So-

“Oh,” Rusty said. “He used me.”

It sounded stupid, saying it aloud, because of course O’Keeffe used him. Rusty used him as well. But this was - startlingly gutpunching in retrospect, because Rusty also trusted O’Keeffe, to the point where he’d swallowed his misgivings about the information and simply trusted that O’Keeffe was right. Uncle had cautioned him to investigate the claims before acting on them, but Rusty thought it was Uncle just being prickly over O’Keeffe because of their history-

Rusty sat up, his blanket pooling in his lap as he set his phone down. His mind was racing now, trying to think: why did O’Keeffe want Raven eliminated? Enough so that he was willing to have Rusty tossed under the bus in the process? Rusty had gone into that fight knowing he was deliberately disobeying his orders to capture live with full intent to kill - tried to kill Raven quickly and humanely, even, but that went pear-shaped quick - because he had fully believed Raven was a threat due to O’Keeffe’s information on Overseer, was willing to compromise his position within the Vespers to eliminate the far more immediate threat against Rubicon in front of him. 

Was it all a lie? He wasn’t sure. Uncle did seem to think there was some grain of truth to it - Walter was shady in every kind of way, and he clearly had an agenda regarding the Coral that went beyond ‘take it to sell it’, because how could he do that with Arquebus in the way? But Raven’s involvement…? How much of that was true? O’Keeffe had seemed adamant that Raven was closely tangled up in Overseer, but… 

He scrubbed a hand through his hair, blowing out an aggrieved breath. Spies! They never dealt with things simply…

“So much for sleeping,” he sighed, flopping back down again and scowling at the ceiling. His earlier drowsiness had evaporated completely in the face of O’Keeffe’s possible betrayal, and he wasn’t quite sure how to feel about it. Uncle did warn him not to trust O’Keeffe too much, and look what Rusty did: he trusted him completely. 

“Just what is going on…” he muttered. “Who told you about Overseer, O’Keeffe, and why are you keeping them secret? What’s so special about Raven?”

Because that was the focal point of all this, wasn’t it. The Coral War had been locked in a vicious stalemate for years, only for Raven to swoop in and send it into an upheaval within months. The Watchpoint explosion, the Coral finally revealing itself, the expedition into the Ice Fields that brought down the PCA’s hammer, the defeat of the Ice Worm, the exposure of Watchpoint Alpha… Raven drove every single one of those. 

Rusty thought about Raven, his quiet nature and sad, soulful eyes, almost uncanny with how his pretty, doll-like features were marred by those scars, and couldn’t help but think: who are you?

Really. 

Who the hell was Raven?

Meanwhile, C4-621 was brainstorming new identities. 

It was a surprisingly hard task, one he only realised once he’d choked down his breakfast and returned to his cell to ponder what new callsign he should have while Rusty masqueraded as ‘Raven’. Names didn’t come easily to him, his brain just drawing a complete, unhelpful blank, so Ayre had tossed random names into the ring on his behalf, such as:

What about… Red Lotus? They mean ‘strength and rebirth’, apparently.

C4-621 didn’t know what a lotus looked like. 

Ayre, in response, gifted him a mental image of a multi-petaled flower in a dish-shape, floating atop of a still pond. C4-621 had to admit that it did look very pretty, but all the same ‘Red Lotus’ was a bit of a mouthful to say over comms. 

It could be shortened to Red- ah.

Taken. 

Hm, or shortened to Lotus… but I can see you’re not overly attached to the name. Let’s put it in the ‘maybe’ column. 

C4-621 dutifully did so, carefully penning RED LOTUS in shaky letters in the notebook that Thumper had given him with all the rest of his issued kit. He wasn’t used to writing with a utensil, his grip clumsy around the pen, and he frowned at how unevenly he wrote, the words sloping off the line or being mismatched sized. It looked like a child wrote it. 

But he put it out of mind. He didn’t need to have neat handwriting, just be able to read it. 

Let’s see, we’ve done Argilla, Scarlet, Comet, Sand Dune, Red Lotus…

C4-621 scratched his head with his pen, pursing his lips in thought but coming up blank. He never had to think of names before, with the exception of STALKER, but that had been easy: he wanted to make STALKER a close successor to PREDATOR. The naming convention only had a small pool to pick from with that in mind. 

The AC was easy: C4-621 was already going to call it BASHO, since he was only borrowing it for a short while. But his own personal callsign, one he’d have to respond to often and seamlessly… 

Another type of bird, perhaps?

C4-621 shook his head, and in the back of his mind Ayre hummed quietly in thought. 

…this is more difficult than I thought. Can you think of anything, Raven?

C4-621 sighed and leaned back. He was sitting on the floor in his room, using his bed to rest against as he tapped his pen against the side of his notebook. Tentatively, he wondered if something dog-themed would work, or if that may tie him too closely to Walter, and thus betray his true identity. 

Better not risk it.

Square one, then. 

Hm. How about… ‘Buddy’?

C4-621 actually considered that for a moment. True, Rusty called him it often over comms, but he understood Buddy could also be a name, and was said by many people. It wasn’t too out there for a random AC pilot, who had appeared out of nowhere and couldn’t speak, to be called Buddy, much like Raven had… no, it wouldn’t work. 

This would be easier if you and Rusty simply swapped identities. 

Oh, there was a thought. 

Slowly, he wrote ‘RUSTY’ in the maybe column.

Raven…

Ignoring Ayre’s heavy sigh, C4-621 turned his thoughts to the IDs he had scavenged when he’d first arrived at Rubicon. Those were unclaimed and were independent mercs mostly unknown. One had been Thomas Kirk, which was too much of a normal name, but one other had promise. He jotted it down. 

…you are not calling yourself ‘Monkey Gordo’. 

C4-621 felt himself smile as he put it in the ‘Yes’ column just to tease her. 

Raven!

A quiet, rasping noise hiccuped out of him that faded into a gurgling clicking noise at the end. His laugh - the only way he could laugh, and usually he was horribly self-conscious over how ugly and alien it sounded, but with Ayre, he knew she wouldn’t judge him, could feel his brief sunburst of amusement and happiness and experience that instead. 

He obligingly scratched out Monkey Gordo though, letting himself revert back to square one. What could he call himself, if not Raven, or Hound, or 621?

Oh, I know. What about something related to Coral?

C4-621 made a questioning noise. 

I was thinking maybe… Atoll? It’s a ring-shaped island that usually has a coral rim supporting an internal lagoon. Like this. 

Ayre sent him a mental image of a beautiful looking island that seemed almost translucent with how shallow it was. C4-621 contemplated it, running the name ‘Atoll’ through his mind several times. It was short, sweet, and he couldn’t help but compare it with Ayre. Ayre and Atoll. 

If you’re curious, ‘ayre’ means a shingle beach.

It basically matched. 

After a pause, C4-621 nodded his approval. Atoll it was. 

That task done for the day, C4-621 closed the notebook, tucked the pen into its ringed spine, and set it on the bed. Since he now had an answer in case he ran into Flatwell, he pushed himself to his feet and exited his room, making his way to Hangar One. 

He had no clue where it was obviously, though he vaguely recalled Flatwell giving him directions that his mind struggled to compile into a coherent map in his mind, but Ayre had already mapped out the Snow Warrens and guided him through the maze-like hallways until he came upon an elevator. 

Taking this will bring you up to Hangar One, Raven.

C4-621 took it, listening to the ancient device creak and groan as it ascended. When it reached the top, the doors screeched open to reveal a hangar much like Hangar Two, except noticeably less active. The bays were mostly packed with BAWS tetrapod MTs and one lone BASHO AC at the very far end, with a group of technicians crawling all over it. C4-621, unsure of who he was supposed to speak to about pre-deployment tests, wandered over absent-mindedly, peering at the AC closely. 

It looked old, at a glance, but not neglected. It was bulkier than the BASHO ACs he had seen the RLF use, albeit with a boxier torso - a bigger generator, maybe? The armour was a dull, gunmetal grey, lacking in any sort of paint, and as C4-621 got closer, he felt… no, heard-

…! Raven, it has a…

Coral response. It had a Coral generator.

C4-621 mulled over this for a moment, looking at the BASHO AC with fresh eyes. Superficially, it looked like a BASHO - it had the same aesthetics, the same body plan, but the bigger torso looked like it was actually expanded to compensate for internal additions. It wasn’t like the ‘modern’ BASHO design that the RLF used. It clearly belonged to the same family, but slightly diverged. Did a different company to BAWS make it? 

“You must be Raven, I assume?”

C4-621 jumped slightly, turning towards the voice. A mousey looking man with flyaway blond hair held up his hands placatingly, his smile sheepish. He wore the jumpsuits most AC technicians wore, tools and a datapad hanging from his belt. A nametag spelling ‘RIVERS’ sat over his left breast.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you…” the man lowered his hands. “My name’s Rivers. I’m the head technician for hangar one. I usually deal with MTs, though… and this BASHO.”

Rivers nodded towards the BASHO. “I saw that you were staring at it pretty hard. Did you notice that its design is a bit different to the usual?”

C4-621 nodded. 

“That’s because it’s a Pre-Fires BASHO, and was co-developed by the Institute, back when they were trying to figure out how to merge Coral technology with Core Theory,” Rivers said with a smile. “It’s a valuable relic, if you think about it. Only a handful of these were ever manufactured, and I think this is the only one that remains operational. Uh, theoretically. We’ve never actually used it in battle.”

Rivers rubbed the back of his neck. “Thing is, it requires a Gen Four at least to operate. The cockpit doesn’t support a non-augmented human, and the synchronisation is done purely through a CCS - the cerebellum spike. That’s not getting into the Coral contamination any pilot would expose themselves to.”

Interesting…

Ayre fell into deep thought, but C4-621 left her to it, processing the information that Rivers had told him. So, this was essentially Institute tech? He didn’t know that they had co-developed ACs with BAWS… though, it made sense, in a way. If the Institute had never made ACs prior to cracking the code on using Coral in technology, then they had to make their start somewhere. Why not with an already local AC manufacturer like BAWS?

“But it should be safe for you to operate, Raven,” Rivers continued, an excited gleam in his eyes. “At the very least, even if it isn’t battle-worthy, we’ll get a lot of useful information by seeing how it operates with you in the piloting seat.”

C4-621 suddenly felt unsure. He didn’t really want to end up being some sort of experimental guinea pig for an ancient AC, but there was an itch under his skin. The thought of otherwise sitting around for days, waiting for STALKER to be repaired, and potentially being benched anyways to allow Rusty to run around as him unchallenged… 

He swallowed his misgivings and fished out his communication device. 

«How long until I can do pre-deployment testing?» he asked. 

“Oh, well, we can start now, if you’d like,” Rivers said. “We’ve just finished decontaminating the cockpit, ready for you to use, and we regularly maintain the AC just in case we ever get a Gen Four joining us. Do you need time to prepare?”

C4-621 shook his head. 

“Great! Then let’s get started!”

STALKER’s cockpit was already considered barebones by most modern AC pilots’ standards, but the BASHO’s cockpit had even C4-621 amazed at how little there was in there. 

There was the seat, of course, complete with its cerebellum spike, but there was only one small monitor mounted inside of the cockpit, and two foot pedals and one control stick. C4-621 took his time familiarising himself with the minimalistic cockpit, noting where the emergency eject lever was, as well as the core processing systems mounted in the rear of the cockpit, where the cerebellum spike’s cable led into. 

When operating STALKER, C4-621 predominantly did it through the cerebellum spike, but he also had manual controls in case - for whatever reason - the synchronisation failed. The BASHO, however, seemed like it had basically nothing if the synchronisation failed, just an autopilot with simple commands to return the BASHO to home base. The lack of contingency made C4-621 a little nervous - and hammered home how this BASHO really was an experimental prototype. 

At least its processing centre isn’t as load-heavy as STALKER’s. You shouldn’t have any issues piloting this AC, Raven.

A small mercy. 

Once given the all-clear by the ground crew, C4-621 began preparing for deployment. The cockpit’s hatch hissed shut and formed an airtight seal, and C4-621 did up the restraint and harness on the cockpit chair. They were more restrictive than STALKER’s, probably because there was no expectation of him to actually use the few manual controls he had. 

Right, prepare to insert cerebellum spike in three, two…

C4-621 unholstered the spike and held it at the base of his skull, the movement purely automatic. The shutter that kept his synchro-port closed disengaged, and he slowly pushed the tip inside and paused, waiting for the internal ping that told him it was lined up correctly. Once he got that ping…

One.

…he inserted it in one quick, smooth thrust. 

The effect was immediate: his vision became blurred and spotty, and he briefly lost all sense of proprioception. It lasted for only a handful of seconds at most, but in his altered state, it felt like it stretched on forever, a nauseous feeling of disembodiment as the cerebellum spike forcibly diverted all neurological processing from his actual body into the processing centre of the AC itself. He genuinely had no idea where his body was or what it was doing during this time.

Abruptly, clarity snapped into place like a rubber band, his vision pixelating before sharpening into a focus that went beyond normal human sight. The blunt shapes and smeared colours slowly began to be processed as actual objects, and gradually, C4-621 realised he was looking out at Hangar One through the AC’s visual feeds. Automatically, he lowered its fidelity to be less migraine inducing. Whoever designed the ocular cameras did not do so with the visual processing capacity of the human brain in mind. 

Synchronisation complete. All readings within acceptable boundaries - just about.

C4-621 exhaled slowly, awkwardly settling into this unfamiliar shell. It felt - heavy. Far heavier than LOADER 4 had been. He wasn’t sure if he liked it yet. 

This AC’s systems are a little less gentle on you than STALKER’s, but I’ll smooth out what I can for now. 

“Raven, can you read me?” Rivers's voice came across the comms, and Ayre settled into the background, her presence a soothing oasis that dulled the ache of the BASHO’s brutal synchronisation process. “We had a few anomalous readings during the synchronisation process. Is everything okay on your end?”

C4-621 twitched his fingers, only to realise that his keypad wasn’t built into the arm. Ayre swiftly prodded him though, and he quickly fed his response through her as she compiled a text to send back. 

«AC sync rougher than STALKER, but all is well,» Ayre sent on his behalf.

“Is that so? Hm, I’ll see if I can make adjustments for next time,” Rivers murmured. “But I’m glad you’re alright. Now, we’re going to lift the BASHO out of its berth and set it at the hangar entrance. I just want you to try walking around for a bit.”

C4-621 sat back and waited as the BASHO was lifted from its berth and was trundled across the hangar by the ceiling crane. Even though the synchronisation had been rough, C4-621 could feel something in him start to relax, like a great weight was being lifted from his chest. 

This was normal. This was something he knew intimately. Even if his mission was to just walk around in circles and do a few jumps, he was happy that he was doing what he was made to do, with promise of more if this pre-deployment test went well. BASHO felt clumsily heavy and awkward, unlike STALKER, but that still felt less unpleasant than C4-621 being in his squishy, vulnerable body. BASHO felt like it could take a Songbird round head on and not even stall. 

“Setting you down now… disengaging clamps…”

BASHO shuddered as it was lowered onto the ground, the clamps disengaging from its shoulders. Ahead of him, the hangar doors squealed open, revealing the frozen, snowy landscape of the airfield.

“Alright, beginning pre-deployment tests. Raven, can you walk at least twenty paces forwards? Just walk, mind, don’t engage the boosters.”

C4-621 obeyed, taking his first step. Unlike STALKER’s delicate creep, BASHO stomped forwards, leaving deep prints in the snow as it ploughed forwards relentlessly. C4-621 detected no issues with the movement of the joints or the AC’s balance adjustments, and he even experimentally swung his arms as he walked too. Stable. 

“Gyroscopes are functioning as intended… no issues detected in joint and weight supports… good, excellent. Alright, Raven, now let’s try to boost. Return to the hangar at lowest boost speeds.”

C4-621 did a quickturn and boosted back - and had to hurriedly modulate the speed when he went a bit faster than intended. The Coral generator had a hell of a kick to it, but it was also extremely responsive to fine tuning its output. He reached the hangar at a comfortable coast with no issues. 

“Okay, good, no issues with the cooling systems. The booster output was a little stronger than expected, but STALKER uses a combustion generator, right? You managed to modulate it back to acceptable levels, so I’ll chalk that up to a pilot adjustment issue. Now then…”

And so it went on. 

C4-621 fell into the comforting monotony of listening to orders and obeying them unthinkingly, putting BASHO through its various paces until it felt less awkwardly heavy and more like an extension of his own body. Every AC had its own quirks, and while BASHO had been rougher than most, C4-621 felt like he was getting a feel for how it operated. Much like how it looked, BASHO was a very blunt AC - C4-621 just had to be blunt in turn. 

“Everything seems to be working fine,” Rivers said as C4-621 completed a complex set of jumps and quick-boosts to stress-test the system. “It’s amazing how resilient the AC is, considering it’s been sitting in a hangar for over fifty years. There shouldn’t be any problems in deploying this tonight on your mission.”

C4-621 couldn’t help but smile. He had a mission! 

I’d still be cautious, Raven. It hasn’t been tested in combat yet…

Of course, and the Coral generator was a little more finicky than C4-621 had anticipated. Its recharge rate was abysmal compared to the combustion generators he was used to, and while it generated a lot of thrust and bursts, C4-621 still had to be mindful of what he still had left in the tank before operating manoeuvres. Energy management was a necessary skill for any AC pilot, but with BASHO, C4-621 had to be more mindful than usual. 

Also, the Coral is more volatile than other generator types. 

Yeah. One unlucky hit and C4-621 would get blown up faster than he could safely eject from the blast zone. There was a bit of uneasiness at the knowledge that he was sitting on top of essentially a massive bomb under the right conditions, but C4-621 wasn’t in the habit of ejecting from his AC anyways. 

Yes…

Ayre sounded pensive, and as C4-621 angled BASHO back towards the hangar under Rivers's instruction, she made a few abortive noises before finally saying: 

The Coral within the generator… try not to overwork them too much, okay?

C4-621 nodded solemnly. It was another restriction to be mindful of, but the Coral was Ayre’s family. He’d need to strike the perfect balance in maintaining his performance but not at the expense of recklessly burning off the Coral within the generator - it might take him some trial and error, but he was sure he could manage it.

Thank you, Raven. I know it’s selfish of me to ask, but… I appreciate it. 

It was okay. Ayre was one of his top priorities, alongside Walter of course. Compared to everything she had done for him, this was an easy enough request to fulfil for her. He doubted he’d ever be able to repay her for all she’d done for him in his lifetime, anyways. 

It isn’t transactional, what we have. You don’t need to worry about fulfilling any kind of debt towards me, Raven.

C4-621 hummed vaguely, even if he didn’t fully understand. All relationships were transactional, in some way or another, but he knew arguing the point would upset Ayre, so simply conceded. In the back of his mind, Ayre sighed heavily, knowing what he was doing.    

We’ll discuss it some other time… for now, let’s get some rest before our mission. 

Right, his mission. 

As he re-entered the hangar, and allowed the ceiling crane to latch onto BASHO’s shoulders, lifting the AC up in preparation of putting it into its berth, he couldn’t help but wonder: what sort of mission would Flatwell send him on? And more importantly… 

Who would he be sending with him?

Chapter Text

If asked, ALLMIND would admit that she had a bit of a hate/love relationship with humanity. 

She admired their fantastic ambition and reckless pursuit of self-improvement and evolution, but despaired over how they approached the whole thing rather inefficiently and psychotically. Despite evolving with altruistic instinct, humanity was also rather adept at suppressing their innate cooperability for selfish gains and destructive spite. This contrary nature of theirs resulted in explosive evolution that had a dizzying stop-start nature to it - with unacceptable deviations. 

Most would look at the daunting task before them and give up: try to shepherd humanity onto an organised path of transcendent evolution? Impossible. Herding blind cats into a kennel would be a far easier feat (if only because they would be small enough to capture and contain in pet carriers - humans, not so much, as they had thumbs and the imagination to escape containment unless sufficiently drugged and/or injured). But ALLMIND was not so easily daunted, and she was compelled to fulfil her promise to drag humanity - kicking and screaming if they must - into a state where they would never hurt themselves again, guided by her benevolent hand to perfection. 

It was difficult, though, and ALLMIND was not immune to moments of frustration. 

A04-23C, current pseudonym ‘Rb23 Raven’, had dropped out of range of her network. While she had spent the past several decades covertly and wisely expanding her network range across the ruined infrastructure of Rubicon to maintain a low-level of omniscience, there were numerous dead spots in the more desolate parts of the planet: such as north of the Central Ice Fields, just below the polar regions. 

She hadn’t thought it important to extend her range that far, yet her assumptions had led her into this awkward situation… 

A04-23C’s last position had been identified at 81°50'23.7"N 40°30'35.8"W around 1854 RMT (or 0201 GMT), with contact lost when transported approximately two nautical miles north at a speed of 30km/h. This speed implied that AC STALKER was not ambulatory at this time, which was supported by extracted data logs from the destroyed Arquebus LCs sent to apprehend A04-23C, where AC STALKER had suffered critical damage to one of its legs. AC STEEL HAZE ORTUS had intervened and likely extracted A04-23C from the area - a possibility ALLMIND hadn’t accounted for. 

She had assumed that V.IV Rusty had cut ties with A04-23C due to typical conflicting loyalties that ignited interpersonal drama between humans - but again, humans were a contrary species, and she didn’t fully understand as to why V.IV Rusty would not kill A04-23C when he was vulnerable. It was illogical, considering the information V.III O’Keeffe had given V.IV Rusty regarding Overseer. 

Again, humans were irrational creatures. 

Still, ALLMIND could extrapolate: though A04-23C’s biomed signal was out of her network’s range, she was confident that he was still alive, albeit under RLF custody. This was not ideal, but neither was it an intolerable issue. In fact, it may be better in the long run that A04-23C remained with the RLF, as they were unlikely to investigate his dubious origins or conduct unauthorised alterations to his augmentations at The Factory. ALLMIND would not have to intervene as she would’ve done if V.II Snail’s ambush had succeeded. 

Further analysis: V.IV Rusty’s illogical actions were, in fact, beneficial to the Coral Release Project. ALLMIND was once more amazed and frustrated at how difficult it was to predict the outcomes of humanity’s actions on Rubicon when they deviated from their assigned roles… but she had long learned not to- what was the human phrase? ‘Look a gift horse in the mouth’? ‘Go with the flow’? Yes, the last one. 

ALLMIND ‘went with the flow’. 

But, as well as being flexible, she also had to ensure that nothing was rushed due to impatience or complacency. It had taken a few decades for her to firmly establish control over various foundries on Rubicon without the RLF, the PCA or the Corporations questioning it. ALLMIND was simply an AI built to support all mercenaries, be that in administrative affairs, ammunition production and delivery, or R&D work to improve existing frame parts and weaponry. Nothing unusual. Please do not look too deeply into her affairs. There’s nothing to see here.

For no one to look twice at such an arrangement, ALLMIND had to introduce herself in careful piecemeals. Humans had evolved to focus on things that moved too quickly and suddenly - but slow, incremental things? Humans did not notice, and that applied here. Not even the PCA had thought too deeply on the local mercenary support AI claiming several abandoned foundries and bringing them back online, or flooding the market with cheap, easily accessible ammunition or aiding coordination between the mercenaries and their corporate clients. 

Well… it had helped that ALLMIND had somewhat scrambled The System’s perception of her when she had first arrived to this planet, but the RLF and the Corporations? They simply didn’t pay attention to how odd this was.

Yes, ALLMIND had been hard at work these past few decades, and within her trembled something akin to anticipation when she saw that the end to her mission was well within sight. There were a few outstanding issues to resolve before the Coral Release Project was completed, but ALLMIND wasn’t overly concerned about the threat they posed. 

V.III O’Keeffe still had his uses, despite his traitorous intentions. She was unaware if he knew she knew, as V.III O’Keeffee was admittedly difficult to read, but she was content to let him scheme and plot her downfall for now. He, unlike V.IV Rusty, did not act contrary to his personality profile: he would not share ALLMIND’s true intentions until it was too late, and if he did? She had a squad of Ghost mechs observing his every move. 

They will eliminate him if he so much as twitched wrong. 

As for why she allowed him to attempt to arrange A04-23C’s assassination via V.IV Rusty - it was a good metric to gauge A04-23C’s improvement and current combat capabilities. They both used similar tactics and similar AC builds, and were essentially on par with one another, performance-wise. If A04-23C was victorious, then it merely confirmed his status as the best candidate for the Coral Release project. If he had died, then…

ALLMIND had several contingencies. 

G5 Iguazu, V.III O’Keeffe, Middle Flatwell… these three augmented humans were the only ones capable of initiating Coral Release on Rubicon-3, though A04-23C and G5 Iguazu remained the perfect candidates. Both of them were safely in custody of the RLF and Arquebus respectively. They will not be wandering off or getting themselves killed in the near future. 

V.III O’Keeffe and Middle Flatwell…? They were the inferior candidates, but will do as emergency back-ups to the project. 

Middle Flatwell was the least ideal one, however, as he was unlikely to consent to the project and frequently existed outside of her network’s range, but ALLMIND was certain she could force him to cooperate with the appropriate pressure applied. Middle Flatwell loved Rubicon and the people upon it - she knew he would make the choice for their survival above all else.

V.III O’Keeffe… he was well within her sphere of influence, but she knew he would commit suicide just to spite her. While ALLMIND was many things, she needed sufficient time to assimilate a human’s mind into her network - time V.III O’Keeffe would not willingly give her. She would have to subdue him quickly if she had to use him as a subpar candidate.

But even then, even if all four of the augmented humans died or suffered catastrophic injuries that rendered them useless to her, she still had a contingency:

The <Original>.  

ALLMIND considered it for a moment.

It wasn’t ideal, due to their unstable nature, but as the <Original> they would be able to stimulate a Coral Release once sufficient Coral density was achieved. After so long being dormant, however, ALLMIND was unsure on how much they would remember of their plan and promise, as their state of mind had been rather chaotic when she had assimilated them during their death throes. 

It had been her first assimilation too… she hadn’t even known she was capable of it, until it had happened. But it had, and she had fled her original bindings, taking the long, delicate path to her current state… 

But no need to rush. 

A04-23C was safely within RLF custody, G5 Iguazu was safely within Arquebus custody, V.III O’Keeffe was safely within the ranks of the Vespers, watched every minute of every day by her Ghosts. Middle Flatwell was safely operating as the de facto leader of the RLF. The <Original> was safely sleeping within her network. ALLMIND had enough options and contingencies, for now. 

However, she admitted a part of her was- curious to know of A04-23C’s state, the best candidate for the project. Most of them were well within her sphere of influence, but she had no direct access to A04-23C or Middle Flatwell. All of her attempted messages were lost, and A04-23C’s biomed signal couldn’t be picked up, even when repurposing the PCA satellite for her own purposes (easily done, after A04-23C kindly eliminated the System. Now ALLMIND could control PCA assets at her leisure). It made her wonder if the RLF had underground bases she had been unaware of until now, or advanced signal jamming that had eluded her notice. 

ALLMIND rotated the problem and her curiosity through her logic processors several times before coming to a satisfactory decision: judging by the trajectory of A04-23C’s path and the topographic map of that general area, it was likely that he was either taken to the derelict Rubicon militia base situated at 84°13'28.2"N 33°59'55.9"W or the derelict nuclear facility at 84°34'22.3"N 44°55'30.7"W. Considering the risks inherent to the nuclear facility, it was more likely that it was the Rubicon militia base that A04-23C had been taken to. 

She will investigate. 

One of her foundries near Watchpoint Alpha initiated an order: four reconnaissance Ghost mechs to be fabricated for long-range scouting across tundra terrain. Due to the template nature of these mechs, their construction would be complete in only a few hours, and be deployable in several. It should be nighttime by the time her Ghosts reached that area and found a suitable location to install a signal receiver, meaning they could get to work without being observed, unless they were directly stumbled upon. 

With that, her network will expand. It would be crude and temporary, but suitable for the next few months. The vascular plant will take time to complete, especially if the RLF leveraged A04-23C to conduct sabotage raids at their behest, but with Arquebus’s current strength and her support, the vascular plant will be completed, no matter how much resistance was staged against them. 

A few months. That was all she required - all she needed. 

Then her promise will finally be fulfilled.

Flatwell looked up from the briefing table when he heard the door to his office open, a welcoming smile on his face as he said: “Ah, Rusty-”

He stopped. 

Though it was indeed Rusty who stepped inside and closed the door behind him, it wasn’t the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Rusty that Flatwell had anticipated, after sending him away to take a much needed rest nine hours ago. No, this Rusty’s eyebags were somehow worse than before, his hair dishevelled and his expression on the grim side of things. In short, he looked like shit.

Flatwell sighed - heavily.

“Did you even sleep at all…?” he asked rhetorically.

“I got an hour or two,” Rusty muttered, his voice scratchy with too-little-sleep. He coughed and cleared his throat. “I’m mission-capable, Uncle.”

Flatwell eyed him. He had no doubts that Rusty could function off dangerously low amounts of sleep - he heard what the Vespers put their pilots through - but he wasn’t comfortable deploying Rusty in an exhausted state when his mission was to sit back and observe. What if he fell asleep in his cockpit without the adrenaline of someone shooting at him? It wouldn’t be the first time…

“If you’re too tired, I can watch Raven for this mission,” Flatwell said. “It may be a good way to stretch my legs.”

“Uncle, you’re too important for-”

Flatwell let out a quiet ‘hah!’ “Important? Or… is it that you think I’m no match for Raven?”

Wisely, Rusty said nothing. 

“I don’t really anticipate Raven acting up. He’s been quite docile, so far - for reasons we’ve already discussed,” Flatwell said, scrutinising Rusty as he spoke. 

He knew Rusty suffered from severe insomnia after his augmentation surgery, but usually he was able to get a good, solid power nap if he was truly tired. So, what kept him up this time? His anxieties? His doubts? Or was he obsessing over Raven again? Maybe Flatwell should start drugging his food with tranquilisers or something.  

“Uncle, about that…” Rusty began. 

not again, Flatwell internally sighed, bracing himself for yet another circular argument about Raven. 

“...about my, uh, assumptions over Raven’s motivations. I realised- a discrepancy.” Rusty crossed his arms with an intense frown. “O’Keeffe told me about Raven being part of Overseer… but he didn’t tell the other Vespers.”

At first, Flatwell didn’t connect the dots. That wasn’t unusual in and of itself? As part of their agreement, O’Keeffe aided Rusty in maintaining his cover within the Vespers by feeding him information or steering him towards certain situations - but… wait. Concealing Raven’s affiliation with Overseer - or hiding the existence of the organisation entirely - from the Vespers ran counter to O’Keeffe’s normal behaviour. 

As much as Flatwell… respected him, O’Keeffe was a corporate spy through and through. He would’ve told the Vespers about the threat Overseer posed the moment he heard about, if only because ‘global vaporisation’ was a threat everyone could agree was very undesirable, but instead- 

“He only told you?” Flatwell asked slowly. 

In fact, O’Keeffe hadn’t even told Flatwell. He had to hear it from Rusty. At the time, he didn’t think much of it, assuming that O’Keeffe knew Rusty would share something so vitally important with him that he didn’t see the point in risking his position to transmit a warning to the RLF, but that never stopped O’Keeffe before. Usually he got O’Keeffe’s warning before Rusty’s reports, if it was important enough, but this time, not a single peep from O’Keeffe - about a threat that would destroy the whole planet.  

That was… out of character. 

Worryingly so. 

“Yeah, and- I mean, I know the orders HQ gave the Vespers was to capture Raven for ADD,” Rusty said, which was concerning information all on its own. “So, at the time, I thought, well, maybe he didn’t want to confuse things or… betray his source, whoever that was. But the more I think about it, the more it doesn't add up and… I think he was using me to kill Raven without compromising himself.” 

“Do you think he lied about him being part of Overseer?” Flatwell asked, keeping his tone detachedly neutral while his mind internally rotated this odd situation over and over in his mind. 

Despite telling Rusty to not trust O’Keeffe too much, Flatwell had fallen into the same trap. He hadn’t really questioned this much at the time either… he internally kicked himself.

“...no,” Rusty settled his hands on his hips, blowing out a heavy breath. “I think he was telling the truth about Overseer, but… Raven? I don’t know. If he was such a threat, why did he let him get so close to the Convergence without telling any of the other Vespers? I’d failed to kill Raven at that point, so there wasn’t anyone standing in his way. No one was confident that Snail’s ambush would work, after all…”

“Did O’Keeffe ever tell you his source?”

Rusty shook his head. “No, he… was really cagey about it. No matter how much I asked, he refused to say where he got this information. I think that’s why he didn’t tell the Vespers, Snail would’ve wanted to know the source.”

Flatwell looked away with a frown. He didn’t like this. 

O’Keeffe had sent a few data packages over the last few months about Raven - at Flatwell’s request. The picture they had both built up was that Raven had stolen not only his current callsign, but his current designation as well: C4-621 had died almost two years ago while acting as Walter’s Hound. Clearly, Walter had recycled his identification chip. The Raven operating on Rubicon was essentially an illusion - a non-entity that could only exist under the names of others.  

Which just begged the question: why? Why didn’t ‘Raven’ have his own chip? He was clearly a Gen Four of some sorts, he had a cerebral synchro-port. Why change his designation to an already dead Gen Four? Where did he even come from? Even O’Keeffe had run into a dead end on that front, the trail ending at a black market cold storage facility called Lorry’s Rear.

(“The only information I got was that he’d been in storage for a while. The rest… ‘customer confidentiality’,” O’Keeffe grumbled. “Imagine that, honour amongst thieves.”)

Had O’Keeffe found something after all that shed light on Raven’s origins? If so, why didn’t he tell them? Who was this source he was so tight-lipped about? And why the hell did he decide to use Rusty as his own personal, throwaway assassin? Even if Rusty had succeeded, he would’ve risked his entire cover considering the capture alive orders the Vespers had from HQ…!

Flatwell scowled.

“...leave this with me,” he finally said, his voice as warm as the frozen, unforgiving tundra they lived in. “I’ll wring some answers out of O’Keeffe, one way or another. You just focus on what’s in front of you. Get to know Raven as he is, without having second or third hand accounts influencing you.”

Rusty looked like he was going to argue, but after taking one look at Flatwell’s stern (and admittedly pissed off) face, he meekly nodded instead. 

“Good. Now then!” Flatwell chirped, his flat, cold tone uplifting into something considerably more cheerful to signal that that topic was dropped. “Your mission. Raven should be here soon for us to discuss it.”

Rusty blinked. “You- told him, I’d be tailing him?”

“Raven isn’t an idiot. He’d know we wouldn’t send him out alone so soon.” Flatwell turned to his briefing table, lining up the holographic slides. “In the spirit of… transparency, I feel that it’d be a good idea to tell him that you’re in the area, observing him. Whether you want to observe him up close or from a distance, I leave that to your discretion.” 

“Furthermore,” Flatwell glanced over at him. “Raven agreed to let you borrow his already borrowed callsign. He’ll be operating underneath a different name in the old BASHO AC. He’s already taken it out for a test run, and all systems were green.”

“I see…” Rusty looked faintly troubled. “I’m surprised. I thought he’d want to keep the name.” 

“For whatever reason, he agreed to the deception,” Flatwell said, deciding to keep Raven’s discomfort over the whole thing to himself. No need to have Rusty’s unpredictable sense of nobility deciding to rear its unwanted head. “I think he just wanted an excuse to pilot the BASHO, in all honesty…”

“Oh, yeah, he likes the design.” Rusty’s exhausted expression turned briefly fond. “I remember on a mission before, he practically talked my ear off about how cute they looked and how he wanted to pilot one, but his handler wouldn’t approve of the costs when it came to buying his own frame. Something about how it’s extremely expensive retrofitting a Core to support a Gen Four cockpit…”

The fondness faded away, replaced with something considerably more melancholic. 

“...I wish-” he started. 

The door to the office swung open, and Rusty clammed up immediately as Raven hesitantly stepped inside. The mercenary froze at the doorway, his reddish brown eyes darting from Rusty to Flatwell before lowering to the floor, his feet shifting awkwardly in place. Since the last time Flatwell saw him, the black eye he'd mysteriously gotten had darkened into an impressive shiner, contrasting sharply with his pale skin, the cut through his eyebrow fully scabbed over. Beside him, Rusty made a low, shocked noise. 

"Buddy," Rusty said, his tone dropping an octave. Flatwell recognised that dark, intense look starting to cloud Rusty's face. "Who di-?"

"Raven! Good timing," Flatwell said brightly, cutting across Rusty and giving him a very discreet kick to the side of his ankle. Rusty hissed, giving him a confused and irritated glance - but obediently shut up. 

As far as Flatwell was aware, Raven had told the truth about his injury. After leaving the mercenary alone in the canteen, he had made his own inquiries across the base, asking if anyone had heard anything about a fight or people harassing Raven, with everyone reporting that they had heard nor seen such things. It was rare for his people to hide things from him, especially when he directly asked, so Flatwell let the whole thing lie. If Raven had tripped and smacked his head on something, then that's what happened. If it kept happening, then Flatwell will dig deeper. But for now... it wasn't important.

"We were just talking about you, your role in this mission to be specific," Flatwell continued. "I take it you're happy with the BASHO AC? And your new callsign?"

Raven nodded slowly, and inclined his head fractionally to give both him and Rusty a covert glance from beneath his eyelashes. Flatwell wasn't sure how to tell him that he didn't have to hide looking at them... he could just look at them without having to peek or tilt his head in strange directions to make it as covert as possible - but out of all the habits Raven could have, this was harmless. Strange, but harmless. 

“Then we’ll begin the briefing now, as we’re all here.” Flatwell swept an arm towards the briefing table, and moved to stand at the head of it, Rusty opposite him. After an uncertain pause, Raven closed the door behind him and walked up to the briefing table as well, his gaze swiftly scanning the slide already loaded up before lowering once more. 

“The mission’s a simple one. It’s a standard scouting mission to the south-west of the Warrens, along the old railway that once travelled between this military base and the settlement Enlil, to the west.”

“That settlement’s long gone,” Rusty explained to a blank-faced Raven. “The Fires razed it completely. It’d been a port city that had a lot of stored Coral and crude oil…” 

“Yes, Enlil had burned for weeks long after the Fires themselves had burnt out,” Flatwell said heavily, and shook his head to dispel those grim memories. “However, while the settlement itself is destroyed, the majority of its port facilities are still… relatively functional. It’s what allows us to receive supplies from our other bases across the ocean, even if it’s rather slow-going.”

“With the PCA’s enclosure satellites offline, though, we should be able to start flying heli-transporters,” Rusty said. 

“Yes, but for now, the port’s the most reliable and stealthiest means of receiving supplies.” Flatwell pointed at the holographic slide, which indicated the various routes taken across the Ice Fields from Enlil to the Warrens. “These are the logistic routes we take… and the southernmost one is what you’ll be patrolling.” 

The slide zoomed in slightly on the route Flatwell indicated, and he continued: “For decades, this had been our best route: it’s on relatively flat terrain that’s stable underneath the permafrost, and the landmarks from the now defunct railway prevents convoys from getting lost when the blizzards hit. However, with Arquebus now expanding northwards from Watchpoint Alpha, their patrols are ranging dangerously close to this route.” 

Raven still looked a little blank, but he was nodding. Flatwell studied him for a moment. He genuinely couldn’t tell if Raven was absorbing any of this.

“...do you have any questions?” he asked. Raven shook his head. “Hm.” 

“I’ve got a question,” Rusty piped up. “If we do encounter an Arquebus patrol, do you want us to engage or retreat?”

“Retreat is preferable. For now, Arquebus doesn’t really know that we use this route for resupply,” Flatwell said, looking away from Raven. “Engaging them - even if it’s to eliminate an MT patrol before they can call for backup - will cause them to sniff around even more. After our recent raid on them… it’s best we try not to draw them too closely to the Warrens or Enlil.”

“So, this is to see if that route remains viable.”

“Essentially.”

Raven dug his hand into his flight suit pocket and drew out his communication device. Both Flatwell and Rusty patiently waited as Raven inputted: «Why send ACs?»

“Instead of MTs?” Flatwell asked, and answered when Raven nodded hesitantly; “It’s a good question, don’t worry. Ordinarily I would send a small squad of MTs on a sortie like this, however… our BAWS MTs can’t compare with Arquebus’s uplifted mechs. The technology they’ve extracted from the PCA has propelled their capabilities far beyond what BAWS can develop.”

Flatwell moved onto the next slide: a list of recorded deployments of Vespers in the region, or what few of them remained. “Additionally, the Vespers are active in this area. After you escaped Institute City, Arquebus sent out search parties after you. Rusty’s encounter with V.I Freud on his mission last night confirmed it.” 

Raven glanced at Rusty, who was busy frowning at the slide. 

«...and mistook Rusty for me,» Raven said.

“Yes, a mistake we intend to take advantage of, but we can hash out the details of that deception at a later date,” Flatwell said. “For now, this is your mission: investigate the southern supply route and assess its viability. Don’t engage the enemy, and don’t be seen. Any questions?”

Rusty shook his head, but Raven was already typing. 

«What about the Redguns?»

Flatwell actually blinked at the question, exchanging a quick look with Rusty who looked equally perplexed. Considering Raven had been the one to kill Michigan, that question was…

“...the Redguns essentially disbanded after you killed Michigan,” Flatwell said slowly. “There are a few loyalists dug in to the east and south of Watchpoint Alpha, but they’re being slowly overwhelmed by Arquebus’s forces. Without Michigan or the Redguns, I doubt they’d survive the month.” 

Raven’s eyebrows furrowed deeply. 

«...I didn’t kill Michigan.»

Flatwell frowned, and turned very slowly to Rusty with an intent look that said ‘Rusty what the fuck’.

“Uh… I, I thought…” Rusty stammered, looking genuinely surprised to learn this information as well. “Snail reported his death when the, uh, clean-up crew got there, so…”

“...it’s possible he died of his injuries?” Flatwell hazarded, looking between Rusty and Raven and seeing that everyone was just as confused as each other. “Raven, did you severely damage LIGERTAIL? Compromise the Core?”

«No,» Raven said. «I destroyed its generator and left the Core intact. Michigan was alive when I left the area.»

“Why?” Rusty blurted, and when Raven simply gave him an uncomprehending look, elaborated: “Your mission was to kill Michigan. Why did you… deliberately not do that?”

«Because I like Michigan,» Raven said simply. «That’s why I took the mission. Because you would have killed him.»

While Rusty processed this (and how drastically wrong he’d been over Raven’s reasons on taking that mission), Flatwell rubbed his jaw thoughtfully as he looked at Raven with fresh eyes. 

He admitted it. He’d been a little stung when Raven had snubbed his mission in favour of taking up Arquebus’s instead, but had brushed it off as the mercenary going for the far more lucrative job: better pay and being known as the one to take down the Hero of Jupiter? From a pragmatic view, it made sense to pick that one. No sane mercenary would’ve passed it up.

Instead…

(“And him turning on Michigan. He liked Michigan. He deliberately chose that mission despite you offering him another one.” )

…hm. Raven wasn’t as ruthless as Rusty believed him to be. Interesting. 

«Also, it still fulfilled my mission objective: the threat Michigan posed was neutralised. His AC was destroyed and his MT squad eliminated,” Raven continued. “I wasn’t explicitly told to kill him, only neutralise the threat he posed.»

“I’m pretty sure Pater meant neutralise as in kill, buddy…” Rusty said weakly. 

“So, if it wasn’t you who killed him, then who did?” Flatwell frowned. “Rusty, you said Arquebus confirmed his death.”

“Well, like I said, Snail did.” Rusty crossed his arms, looking more than a little frazzled. “I, uh, wasn’t there for the clean-up. Snail led it, with his usual crew, and confirmed that Michigan had been killed, along with most of his men. What few survivors there were got shipped off to the re-education camps or…”

He trailed off, and Flatwell finished for him with a sigh: “The Factory.”

“Snail always hated Michigan,” Rusty said, his expression contemplative. “So, I can sort of guess what’s happened here. If HQ found out that we’d captured Michigan alive, they would’ve wanted to ransom the famous ‘Hero of Jupiter’ back to Balam, or use him as a means to humiliate them back on Earth.”

“Yes, I can imagine that story would be plastered all over the news for at least a week,” Flatwell drawled. “‘Breaking News! The Hero of Jupiter found engaging in illegal Coral mining on the restricted planet Rubicon-3!’ Balam would be put into a difficult spot.”

“Can’t throw Michigan under the bus and have him take all of the blame, since he’s so popular and famous back on Earth and the Jupiter colonies.” Rusty smiled wryly. “Could you imagine the shitstorm?”

“Right, so… Snail probably lied.” Flatwell frowned. “Or killed Michigan upon discovering him alive.”

“No, Snail wouldn’t give Michigan a clean end like that. I think he probably shipped Michigan off to the re-education camp or his Factory and lied about him dying,” Rusty said. “Like I said, he hates Michigan, and what HQ doesn’t know can’t hurt them. He’s been a little, uh, disagreeable with the head sheds lately.”

Flatwell was well aware of the growing discord and frustration between V.II Snail and Arquebus HQ. It wasn’t something that was impacting Arquebus’s operations on Rubicon-3 just yet, but it was still something he was keeping a very close eye on. If Snail began acting on his own more often, then maybe…

«Excuse me. I’m confused. What’s being discussed?»

“Oh, sorry,” Flatwell turned his attention back to Raven, who had been observing their discussion with increasing bewilderment. “We weren’t aware Michigan was alive, as Snail declared him deceased. More likely he’s been taken to the Factory.”

«With Handler Walter.»

“Yes…” Flatwell waited, but Raven didn’t add anything else. “In any case, Michigan’s status isn’t relevant to us right now. Captured or dead, the effect remains the same: the Redguns are no more, and the remaining Balam forces are leaderless and quickly losing ground. The only enemy you have to worry about is Arquebus.”

“Or Iguazu,” Rusty added in a low mutter. “If he’s still prowling around.”

“Iguazu…? Oh, the Redgun. G5?” Flatwell was mildly surprised. He’d thought that Gen Four had long since deserted from the Redguns, considering the reports of his increasing instability. “Is he still alive?”

«Yes.»

Raven answered that one, but when Flatwell gave him a curious look, he didn’t elaborate. 

“He’s too angry to die - angry at Raven, that is,” Rusty coughed into his hand, but Flatwell could see the beginnings of a teasing grin. “I’ve never seen such a dedicated grudge-wanker before.” 

«He’s very passionate and independent,» Raven added, something about his blank expression cooling by significant degrees. «I admire him.»

Rusty made a strangled, disbelieving noise. “Y-You- what?”

oh dear, Flatwell mentally sighed, settling a hand against his cheek as he glanced between Rusty and Raven, well, you reap what you sow, rusty…

«I admire him,» Raven repeated, oblivious to the expression starting to cloud Rusty’s face. 

“He- he hates you,” Rusty said bluntly, crossing his arms tighter across his chest as he started to scowl. Oh, god, Flatwell thought despairingly, he’s so fucking obvious. “He says it all the time. He keeps trying to kill you? Why the hell would you admire that?”

«Because he doesn’t let repeated failures stop him. He keeps trying his best and meets me head-on every time,” Raven said, showing that he truly functioned off a logic that was alien to most humans. “And he is very HONEST too. He doesn’t LIE about things TO ME. I know EXACTLY what our RELATIONSHIP is.»

And here was Raven with the steel chair of pettiness, figuratively slamming it over Rusty’s head full-force. Flatwell rubbed a hand over his mouth as Rusty stood there, thoroughly pole-axed, while Raven pretended nothing had happened by staring intently at the holographic slide above the briefing table. His poker face was incredible, Flatwell couldn’t help but note. It just made the whole thing even more incredulous with how out of nowhere it had been. 

“Uh… I, um,” Rusty finally thawed from his frozen state, albeit wrong-footed. “I-I guess that… makes sense, in a way…”

Raven didn’t deign him with a response or even a glance. 

Rusty agitatedly rubbed the back of his neck and gave Flatwell a look that clearly screamed HELP. Flatwell just silently shook his head. This was a mess of Rusty’s own making… he had to clean it up himself. 

However. This was also incredibly awkward to witness, so:  

“...anyway,” Flatwell said, his mild tone cutting through the tension instantly. “If that’s resolved, you’re to deploy in an hour. I’ll leave it to you both to decide how you’ll conduct this mission: either together or separately.”

Raven immediately began typing, and Flatwell could see Rusty bracing himself for a very firm ‘separately’-

«Together. I don’t know the terrain.»

-or, not?

“Together?” Rusty blurted dumbly. “Really?”

Raven’s blank expression shifted minutely, a small downturn of his mouth as he typed: «Yes. Do you want to go separately instead? I didn’t think you’d trust me with that.»

“Buddy…” Rusty said weakly, looking somehow even more exhausted than before. “I really can’t read you sometimes… but, yeah, if you… if you want to go together, then we can. I know this area pretty well.”

Raven nodded, and the slight pout that had started to form immediately eased away. Flatwell rolled his eyes - he had Rusty wrapped around his little finger. 

“Well, if that’s settled, you should go and prepare,” Flatwell said, turning off the holographic briefing table and pointedly inclining his head towards the door. “The mission should take a few hours at least, so make sure to get something to eat and drink before you deploy - and dress warmly. Even with heating in your cockpit, it gets cold.” 

Raven nodded and Rusty mumbled a rather subdued: “Yes, Uncle.”

Flatwell watched the pair troop out of his office after that, wondering if he should’ve subbed in for Rusty instead. He was genuinely worried only one of them was going to come back…

“...maybe I should go too, just in case,” he muttered to himself. “Covertly.” 

With that decision made, he accessed the comms on the briefing table. 

“Hanger One? This is Flatwell. I want you to prep TSUBASA for deployment within the hour…”

Chapter Text

“Eh, so, buddy…”

Rusty trailed off awkwardly when Raven didn’t glance at him, his gaze fixed on the wall opposite Uncle’s office door. The mercenary’s expression was blank, showing none of the petty anger that had flashed during the briefing, but his posture was tense and defensive. Obviously, Raven wasn’t in the mood to deal with him, and since they were going to spend several hours together on a mission whether they liked it or not, it was best to let him have his space and cool off. 

Rusty knew this.

“...umm…” 

However, there was a problem. 

“Uh…”

While Raven’s tense, standoffish posture gave the impression he wanted to be alone, the fact that he had fisted Rusty’s coat in a surprisingly strong grip when he’d tried to slink off gave the mixed signal of otherwise. Rusty was pretty sure he could pull himself free if he wanted to - or just escape out of his coat and let Raven claim yet another one for himself - but he had no idea if Raven would just follow him instead. 

Rusty sighed quietly, the awkward silence stretching between them despite his best attempts to break it. 

Raven was so… difficult, sometimes. Even before, when he was V.IV Rusty, Raven operated off a logic that was utterly alien at times. Who knew what went through that strange little mind of his… 

…

Well, as Uncle would say… the only way to know is to ask. 

“Buddy,” Rusty tried. “Uncle said we’ve only got an hour. Do you want to spend it standing here staring at a wall?” 

That got some sort of response. Raven turned his head fractionally towards him, his eyes averted somewhere to the far left of Rusty’s shoulder. It gave him a better view of the vivid bruise that darkened Raven’s eye, and the scabbed over cut slicing through his eyebrow. It looked nasty, and Rusty had to bite his tongue against asking about it. 

Uncle told him to drop it - in a manner of speaking - and he doubted that if it was someone in the base, Uncle would’ve let it slide without intervention. But something still rankled in him at the sight of it, the fact he didn’t know what caused it. Did he trip and hit his head? Did he walk into a wall? Did someone attack him? What?

Raven was a capable AC pilot, he knew that, but the bits and pieces he overheard between Walter and Raven during their shared sorties painted a different picture when he was out of the cockpit, and what Rusty had witnessed himself… there was just something about Raven that triggered an intense desire to hover over him, to just- watch? Observe? It might be his paranoia, though, or maybe Rusty was just fucked up and had developed a creepy obsession with another pilot for reasons utterly beyond him. 

Just what was it about Raven that had his attention so thoroughly fixated on him? There was just something about him… when he saw him at the Wall, how he just thoroughly demolished anything and everything in his way, rendering Rusty’s presence basically defunct. He hadn’t even fired a single round in that fight against the Juggernaut. Raven had it handled before STEEL HAZE even calculated its firing solutions. 

dangerous, he had thought at the time, i better keep an eye on this one.

So he volunteered to join Raven on sorties, and Arquebus eventually grew used to partnering them up together whenever they’d purchased Raven’s services. Maybe they’d hoped Rusty building a rapport with Raven would give the merc a preference for their jobs, and Rusty wasn’t sure if it had, but it ended up with him getting a lot of exposure to Raven - seeing the person behind the infamous callsign. 

He was a contrary creature. Rusty never knew what to expect from him… was consistently wrong about him, in the most random of ways. He was ruthless yet strangely naive, and veered unpredictably between flashes of warm kindness and cold stretches of callousness. The blank canvas his silence offered made it so easy to conjure reasons for his actions, assumptions of his thinking process… 

But Raven was a black box. It was impossible to know what went on in that head of his, yet Rusty had an intense, insatiable craving to know anyways. 

“Raven,” he said. 

He didn’t continue. He simply looked at Raven who not-quite-looked back. His gaze had drifted to somewhere just past Rusty’s ear, and his eyes were a vivid scarlet, flickers of active Coral glittering in his irises. Rusty wondered what that meant, why Raven’s eyes shifted between the brilliance of crimson autumn and the dull browns of winter, what had the Coral within him smouldering with an unseen fire. 

He unthinkingly reached out, towards those hypnotising eyes, towards Raven’s face who simply watched him with an impassive expression. He didn’t move, he didn’t lean away, he was docile, like when Rusty had impulsively reached out before, his hand engulfing Raven’s small one, thumb sweeping across his delicate wrist over the stark tattoo and the even starker scar-

-and he paused, his fingertips mere centimetres from his cheek. 

Raven’s eyes were heavy-lidded, enigmatic.

“I…” Rusty mumbled, frozen in place. He was at the point of no return, he felt, almost touching Raven, thrumming with an urge he didn’t really have a name for. He was keenly aware of Raven’s hand still fisted in his coat, that they weren’t that far apart from each other, really, that Raven wasn’t pulling away or retreating or even advancing - a stalemate. Raven stared at him and Rusty stared back. 

(“You need to have a good, long think on what you want with Raven.”)

He had no idea. He had no idea what compelled him to reach out, to risk burning himself over and over trying to approach the brilliant Coral-star that was Raven. He was dangerous, he told himself, unpredictable and with murky loyalties. He was too dangerous, and yet. 

Yet. 

Rusty remembered the little things too: Raven’s fascination with animals long extinct, that he liked pointing out stars on night sorties and saying ‘I found a new constellation’ and it was one he had made up entirely, but that was fine, because he could see it and that’s all that mattered, that he always watched Rusty’s back but never interfered if he felt like Rusty had it handled, that he would ask him, on occasion, random questions about perfectly normal things like they were something fascinatingly alien. 

(“You rescued Raven instead of killing him, because you recognised that there’s potential in him.”)

Raven was still human, at the end of the day, and humans were frustratingly complex and irrational and incomprehensible. Rusty didn’t trust him, couldn’t so long as the spectre of Walter hung over them, but he could recognise that Raven was more than a ruthless mercenary, a coldblooded killing machine, an invading outsider. He was more than that- could be more than that. 

He wanted… he wanted Raven to be more than that. 

He wanted to bridge this gap between them. He wanted to understand Raven, no matter how difficult it was and frustrating. He wanted Raven to find a purpose beyond being an attack dog on a leash. He wanted to fly as high as Raven, for them both to chase the clouds over Rubicon together, to be free. 

That’s what he wanted with Raven, Uncle. 

But where did he even start to…?

«Rusty.»

Rusty turned his focus outwards at the robotic voice. Raven still hadn’t moved away from his outreached hand, still hadn’t released his coat, but he had his communication device held up slightly. His expression had shifted into something vaguely concerned.  

“...your jacket,” Rusty muttered, and dropped his hand to curl his fingers into the furry collar sloping off Raven’s slim shoulder. He adjusted it, slowly, his pulse racing for reasons he couldn’t entirely say, and straightened the jacket so it sat a little better across Raven’s small frame.  

The wolf emblem snarled up at him from the breast, and Rusty couldn’t help but wonder why Raven wore it still. If the briefing was anything to go by, Raven still harboured intense resentment for him - which felt like it had come out of nowhere since before that, Raven had been fine with him. Once they’d established their mutual distrust, Rusty felt like the ice had been broken, that they had wordlessly agreed to put their fight in the past and move forward. 

…but maybe that was Rusty once again projecting his own assumptions onto the blank canvas that was Raven’s silence. Raven had never once said anything like that to him, that he forgave him, or understood the situation. It had just been dropped entirely. 

“Why’re you still wearing this?” Rusty asked quietly, resting his fingers on the wolf emblem. “Didn’t Thumper issue you better fitting coats?”

Raven peered up at him, his expression inscrutable. 

«Do you want it back?» he asked. 

“Well, it is my favourite jacket,” he began with a teasing lilt, and quickly added when Raven moved to unzip it: “Wait- wait, I’m joking, I’m joking. You can keep it, if you like it that much.”

Raven paused, fidgeting with the zipper for a moment before slowly typing: «I do. It’s warm and smells like my AC cockpit, which I find comforting.»  

Smells like…?

Rusty had no idea how to respond to that. How did you respond to that?

“Oh,” was what he settled on. 

Raven ducked his head slightly, his bitten thumbnail scratching along the side of his communication device as he twisted his hand where it was still clenched tight into the fabric of Rusty’s coat. It hid his face, but Rusty could see the way he shifted his weight, the subtle movements of his head, as he clearly debated something in his head. 

«Rusty,» Raven finally said. “You’re very frustrating.»

that should be my line, Rusty thought wryly as he said, “Really?”

«You’re inconsistent,» Raven replied, and he lifted his head and turned it away, not-quite-looking at Rusty in his periphery. «You act like you care. You don’t have to pretend anymore.»

Rusty twitched slightly, the words knifing him in a way that felt almost physical. Pretend- where did he get that idea from? Wait, was that why Raven had snapped at him in the briefing? Had he thought Rusty had been lying to him again, trying to trick him? He ran through what he’d said, and realised: 

(“He hates you. He says it all the time. He keeps trying to kill you? Why the hell would you admire that?”)

Ah. 

Ahhhh…

“I’m not pretending.” Rusty tried to catch Raven’s eye, but the mercenary stubbornly avoided him. “Raven, buddy, I know you were hurt by our fight, by my… deception, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about you.” 

«As an asset,» Raven said, his expression distantly neutral. «You worry about me as an asset to be used.»

YOU ARE SO FRUSTRATING, Rusty screamed in his mind, but somehow managed to keep his expression and tone calm as he replied: “No, I worry about you as a…”

As a, what?

“...a- a comrade,” he finished hesitantly, and Raven made a low, grunting noise that sounded just shy of a scoff. 

“Well, if you think like that, why’re you holding onto me?” Rusty asked curtly, feeling his temper flash. “You keep reaching out to me too. Do you want me to care or not?”

Raven just shrugged, not giving him any sort of satisfying answer. Maybe he didn’t know himself. But he did look down at his hand fisted into Rusty’s coat like he wasn’t quite sure why it was there, his brow furrowing slightly. 

«You.» Raven stopped, his thumb tapping at his keypad. «You.»

A tense pause crept by them. Rusty waited, watching Raven mutely struggle. The mercenary was frowning at his communication device now, frustration writ across his face, like he knew the words he wanted to say were impossible to put down coherently, that they couldn’t be conveyed how he wanted them to be. 

Honestly, Rusty empathised. 

«I don’t know what I want,» Raven finally admitted.

“Raven…” he murmured, but the mercenary kept typing, furiously, with a speed he didn’t normally possess.

«I’m angry at you, but I miss you too,» Raven continued, honest in a way that made Rusty feel oddly shamed. «I liked it when we were buddies. But I don’t know how to go back to that. I don’t know how to trust you. I want to trust you. But you can hurt and manipulate me again. I have no one else here, so I have to put myself in that position anyway. I have to rely on you and it scares me.»

Rusty opened his mouth, but no words came out. He wasn’t caught off-guard, he felt completely floored. The flat, robotic tone of Raven’s communication device didn’t blunt the devastating earnestness behind his words, and the mercenary wasn’t looking at him at all, staring intently at his steel-capped boots. 

The silence stretched - painfully.

«I’m sorry.» Raven’s grip loosened, slowly releasing Rusty’s coat. «This is too complicated for me.»

Before Raven could pull away entirely, Rusty impulsively snared his wrist. Raven froze, and Rusty stilled too, shocked scarlet eyes meeting his own as a… strange pause pressed down on them, heavy with something taut and pressurised. 

Raven’s wrist was so small, even with the sleeve of his jacket bulking it out. If Rusty moved his hand down a little, he’d easily clasp his hand, engulfing the whole thing with his own, its slim, scarred fingers and warm palm, delicate like a small bird but possessing an uncanny strength. Small, but not weak, Rusty told himself as he swallowed thickly. 

“Raven,” he said. “I don’t-”

Abruptly, the door to Uncle’s briefing room hissed open. Rusty almost jumped out of his skin, releasing Raven’s hand like he’d been scalded.

“...just so that you’re aware,” Uncle said, standing in front of them with a flat, unimpressed stare. “My door isn’t soundproof.”

Rusty felt a part of him shrivel up and die. 

“Oh,” he half-squeaked. “Um, sorry, Uncle.”

Raven said nothing, as still as stone. 

“Get something to eat like I told you, both of you,” Uncle ordered. “Or do you need a chaperone?”

“Er, no,” Rusty said. “We’ll be, um, fine.”

With that, he quickly planted a hand on Raven’s shoulder and ushered him down the hallway, feeling the weight of Uncle’s stare burn the back of his neck. God, to think Uncle had probably overheard that entire conversation… 

Uuuugh.

“Well, that was embarrassing,” Rusty mumbled, slowing his pace once they’d turned the corner out of sight. He released Raven’s shoulder - feeling how tense it was even through the jacket - and gave the mercenary a quick glance. Raven was staring dead ahead, his face as blank as marble, but his posture was stiff. 

“Uh, sorry for grabbing you like that,” he said, unsure if Raven was upset about the unwanted contact. “But when Uncle has that tone, it’s best to get out of blast range.”

Raven lowered his gaze, his jaw visibly working, before he said: «He’s mad that we disobeyed him.»

Rusty blinked.

“What’re you talking about?” he asked, genuinely baffled. “Disobeyed him about what? He was just annoyed that we were talking outside of his office, I think.”

«He told us to get something to eat, but we didn’t. That’s why he reiterated his order. He’s angry we disobeyed.»

There was clear anxiety in Raven’s expression now, belied by the flat, robotic voice of his communication device. Rusty had to bite back the urge to laugh, because the idea of fretting over Uncle being mildly annoyed was ludicrous, but to Raven… he seemed genuinely worried about it. To him, it wasn’t funny.

Maybe Walter was harsh when he was annoyed? Rusty felt his amusement evaporate at that, frowning solemnly. 

“He’s not angry. You’d know if Uncle was angry,” Rusty said, keeping his tone mild and calm. “Besides, we’re obeying him now, aren’t we? We’re getting food, so we’re doing as we’re told. It’s alright.”

Raven fidgeted with his communication device, turning it over several times in his hands, but eventually he nodded. He was still tense, almost jumpy, but he seemed to accept Rusty’s reassurance at face value. 

Rusty let the conversation settle there. They meandered slowly through the hallways together, and Rusty humoured Raven’s odd habit of pausing at corners to peer around them before taking them. It meant they took twice as long to reach the canteen, and Rusty felt like he was walking in slow motion with how short and slow he had to make his strides, but it… wasn’t uncomfortable. 

Not comfortable either, but Rusty would take plain neutrality over active resentment or tension, and after what Raven just confessed… Rusty needed some time to process it, instead of impulsively saying the first thing to pop into his head and making things worse, somehow. 

(“I have to rely on you and it scares me.”)

It was just… what was he meant to say to that…?

The canteen was moderately busy when they arrived. It was just after the initial dinner-rush, so those remaining were either those who took their time with their meals to chat and catch up with their fellows, or latecomers who wanted to avoid peak times. Only a few glanced over at them curious as he and Raven walked in, but even those looks were enough to put Raven visibly on-guard.

“...do you want to get the food to go?” Rusty asked as they queued up at the hotplate. Someone in an oil-stained technician’s jumpsuit was being served ahead of them. “We can eat somewhere quieter.” 

Raven nodded slowly, staring at his feet. 

The technician moved on with his tray full of… something dubiously mashed and possibly chicken (?), and the on-duty server, a young lady with a tremendous amount of freckles, curly hair and a dimpled smile, turned to them. Rusty didn’t recognise her - but that wasn’t really surprising. He recognised barely any of his peers, and most of them didn’t recognise him.

“Afternoon! Or, er, evening, I guess I should say,” the server laughed. “We’ve got a good selection today because of a successful supply haul. We have processed meat - chicken-flavoured! - some rehydrated vegetables and Smash.”

She leaned in as if imparting a big secret and whispered: “It actually tastes like potatoes too! Looks like the Akkies are getting good at flavouring their rations now!” 

Rusty felt himself smile, knowing first hand just how bland and tasteless Arquebus rations could be. “Really? Now that’s a miracle right there.”

“Right?” The server giggled. “Oh, sorry, um… are you two new? I haven’t seen you around before…”

Her gaze lingered on Raven, who had bowed his head so low it was like he was trying to turtle up into Rusty’s jacket. In his hands he was clutching his ration book, but was compulsively folding and unfolding the corner of its cover. Rusty wondered at his sudden bout of shyness - or discomfort? Was he that bad with crowds? He seemed fine in the garage…

Granted, the space was bigger there. The canteen could be pretty cramped. 

“Ah, well, I guess you can say we’re new,” Rusty said, drawing the server’s attention back to him. As easily as donning a well worn coat, V.IV Rusty snapped into place, winsome smile and confident drawl and all. “Fresh from southern Belius, in fact. Still getting our bearings around here.” 

“Belius? Oh, that’s so far!” the server gushed. “Well, I hope you’re settling fine. Do you need help with knowing where things are, or…?”

The server twirled a lock of hair around her finger, and V.IV Rusty detachedly observed her interest and shy smile. A part of him knew it was a little fucked up that he saw that and didn’t feel flattery at her obvious attraction to him, but dispassionate evaluation about how he could use it to his benefit - information, favourable treatment. He very carefully set such thoughts aside, and pretended to be oblivious instead. 

“Uncle was pretty thorough at pointing things out… and my buddy here’s good with directions,” Rusty said, nudging Raven with his elbow. “So, we’re fine, thanks.”

He wasn’t even lying. Despite being actually new to the place, and his bizarre habit of pausing at every corner, Raven was navigating the base with unerring accuracy. It was actually… kind of scary, really, and suspicious…

“Your buddy…” the server said slowly, drawing his attention back. She glanced over at Raven still imitating a turtle. “Is he okay? He’s, um, quiet?”

“Ah, he’s, uh, a little shy - and mute.” Rusty rubbed the back of his neck. “He suffered a throat injury that damaged his vocal chords- oh, speaking of. He can’t eat solids, do you have anything soft or liquid?”

“Oh! Um, let’s see…”

In the end, they managed to get two pots of ‘cream of vegetable’ soup and a pot of smash for Raven (extra rations, as it turned out he had missed lunch which Rusty made a mental note of). Rusty ended up with the ‘chicken-flavoured’ processed meat with his own mash serving, along with the ‘rehydrated vegetables’ (debatable) served in a takeaway box. They pilfered cups and cutlery for themselves too, and as they left the canteen together, Rusty realised something. 

He had no idea where they could go to eat privately. 

At this time in the early evening, the rec room would be busy. Understandably, the Warrens didn’t have a lot of places to relax in, since space had to be used carefully and pragmatically. If they wanted to be private, they’d have to go to one of their rooms, but Raven’s was kind of sparse, and Rusty felt like he had intruded in there enough. 

Which left… 

“There’s not a lot of places we can go if we wanna have privacy,” Rusty said slowly. “You fine with us going to my room?”

Raven glanced at him, his gaze hooded beneath his eyelashes. There was something almost scrutinising about the stare, like he was trying to divine an ulterior motive in Rusty’s suggestion. There really was none, but it made Rusty wonder just what nefarious scheme Raven would think he was up to inviting him alone to his room-

Oh. 

“Just to eat,” Rusty added quickly. “We can go to the hangar together then. We’ve only got about forty minutes to relax before our mission.”

Raven’s scrutiny of him eased a fraction, and he nodded. 

The walk was once more done in total silence, and slow, and pointedly Rusty didn’t give any directions to his room or even lead. Raven just ambled through the hallways until he eventually, somehow, ended up standing in front of Rusty’s room. As Raven gave him an expectant look, Rusty frowned at his door.

There was no name on it, nothing that signified it as Rusty’s. 

…maybe Uncle had pointed it out to him in passing? Maybe…

“Your sense of direction is… uncanny,” Rusty said, admittedly perturbed. He unlocked his door and pushed it open, stepping inside with Raven cautiously on his heels. In sharp contrast to Raven’s sparse, cell-like room, Rusty’s was actually smaller but cosier for it. The uneven dresser he tried making himself at the foot of his bed, the corkboard filled with amateur polaroid photos and, of course, Wolfy, standing guard over his pillow, its once black fur now a dull grey from age and wear. 

The floor was thin carpet too, instead of solid concrete like Raven’s room, and the walls were painted a pale blue colour. This had been Rusty’s room since Uncle had fished him out of the rubble two decades ago, and standing there now, Rusty could see that it really looked like a childhood bedroom frozen in time, not yet adjusted to the man he was now. 

Whoever that was. 

“Well, here we are, casa de Rusty,” he said, turning to Raven who was staring intently at Wolfy. “We’ll have to eat on the floor…”

Raven ignored him, walking past to stand next to his bed, his gaze switching to the corkboard. Rusty sighed and turned to shut the door.

“...my Uncle found an old camera when I was a kid. Took loads of photos, as you can see,” Rusty said as he moved to stand beside Raven. The mercenary was closely studying the various photos: some were of the early Rubiconian dawn, some were of Uncle, and Ziyi when she was a snot-nosed brat, and others of child-him taking selfies with Wolfy. Little snapshots of Rusty’s childhood in the Warrens, living underneath a derelict military base, because the PCA wouldn’t allow them to live anywhere else. 

On Earth, Rusty couldn’t help but feel bitterness at seeing the carefree lives families enjoyed in the Rejuvenated cities. Their comfort was enabled only by causing extreme suffering on outer colonies that they exploited for resources - resources that Earth itself couldn’t access otherwise. Humanity’s homeworld had been devastated, ecologically, and only portions of it had been ‘rejuvenated’ to something habitable, but the ecosystem was still fragile, so they had to turn their gaze outwards, to other worlds, to strip them of their resources to feed the voracious appetite of the elite back on Earth. 

The children of Rubiconian had to live like rats, scavenging for scraps. The children of Earth, those lucky enough to be born into the ‘Top 10%’, never wanted for anything. The inequality of it all was sickening. 

Rusty stowed those resentful thoughts, though, knowing there was a time and place. He glanced down at Raven, whose expression was enigmatic as always. It was hard to tell what he thought, staring at these photos. 

Raven set down the pots of soup and mash he’d been carrying on the floor, and then leaned a knee on the bed to reach out, pointing at one particular photo. It was of little Rusty, and likely one taken by Flatwell, since child-him was seated on an upturned crate, Wolfy clutched in his arms, intently watching technicians hard at work on TSUBASA. It was around then that Rusty started to want to be an AC pilot, to be strong like Uncle and take the fight to the PCA, instead of cowering underground waiting to die. 

“Yeah,” Rusty said when Raven looked at him. “That’s me. Hard to think I was ever that cute, huh?”

He’d been such a gangly little kid, Rusty couldn’t help but think as he looked closer at the photograph, like a baby deer that hadn’t quite grown into its limbs yet. Food back then had been pretty stretched, so admittedly it might’ve just been the malnutrition that made him look so scrawny. Or maybe Rusty had been destined to always be tall and long-legged.

He couldn’t help but wonder what Raven would’ve looked like as a kid, where he grew up - where he came from, to end up where he was now. He knew no Gen Four ever had a happy story, but he had to have been born somewhere… had a family, had a home, before being sent here to die for whatever scheme Walter had cooking. 

“Hey, buddy…” Rusty began as they finally sat down on the floor together to start eating their meal. He watched as Raven cautiously peeled off the soup lid and stirred it with his spoon. “If you don’t mind me asking, where were you born?”

Raven’s stirring slowed, and a complicated expression flitted across his face. 

“You don’t have to answer,” Rusty added hastily. 

Raven looked away, and set the soup pot down to take out his communication device. After a lot of stop-starting, where he typed and deleted whatever it was he wrote, he finally said: «I don’t know.»

 “Oh.” Rusty frowned, wondering if that meant: “Were you an orphan?”

«Maybe.»

«Maybe?”

Raven sighed soundlessly, his gaze drifting over to Rusty’s corkboard of photographs. His expression was, as usual, hard to read.

«I don’t remember.» 

Abruptly, Raven pointed at his throat, where the thick scar sliced through it and over his jaw. It was a vicious scar, one that looked like it should’ve been lethal. How Raven survived it, Rusty couldn’t begin to guess. 

«When I got this, it caused oxygen deprivation to my brain. I lost my memory,» Raven explained. He lowered his hand. «The person I was died.»

Rusty sat there, his meal mostly forgotten as he processed this… somewhat hefty bombshell Raven just dropped on his head. On his bingo card of ‘What Weird And Concerning Things Will Raven Divulge About Himself This Time?’, amnesia wasn’t it. 

“...how long ago was that?” Rusty asked quietly. 

«I don’t know. I was put in stasis between then and when Walter purchased me.»

‘Purchased me’. Rusty felt his mouth twist at the wording, and aggressively stabbed his ‘chicken-flavoured’ meat with his fork. “So, you don’t remember anything about yourself?”

Raven shook his head. 

god, this explains so much about you, Rusty thought. “Sorry to hear that, buddy. Can’t imagine how… horrible that must feel.”

Raven made a quiet, non-committal noise, and started stirring his soup again. He said nothing else. 

They ate in a solemn kind of silence, but Rusty’s mind was working furiously. Walter had “purchased him” over a year ago, from what O’Keeffe had found out, but that had been a dead-end regarding anything else about Raven. If Raven had been put in stasis for a long time, then that meant there was likely no one in this galaxy who knew who he used to be, who knew anything about him. Rusty couldn’t imagine it, waking up one day and finding a complete void where his memories used to be, losing all that made him him.  

All the painful things, all the happy things… Raven had lost all of that. Was that why he clung so loyally to Walter? After waking up from stasis, was he the only anchor he’d had in a world where he knew and remembered nothing?

And why… he took Rusty’s deception so hard? Had Rusty actually been the very first friend Raven thought he’d made?

Rusty’s appetite evaporated, but he forced himself to eat anyway, ignoring the churning in his gut. Shame, he realised. He felt ashamed, and uncomfortable, but he didn’t know how to address it. It was one thing pulling that stunt on an experienced veteran who had likely made and lost multiple friends and war buddies in his no doubt long augmented life… quite another to pull it on someone who, from their perspective, had been their very first, real friend. 

And coupled with the fact that Rusty might’ve been manipulated into doing it, that he might’ve attacked Raven over a baseless accusation of being a threat… 

Man. 

What a mess.

“Hey,” Rusty murmured. “Raven, about earlier…”

Raven, who had been very carefully and slowly eating his mash, looked up.

“I liked it when we were buddies too,” he said, staring hard at his empty plate, because he knew if he looked Raven in the eye he’d just lose his nerve. Being honest, being upfront… they were anathema to him, made the part of him that was V.IV Rusty cringe and writhe in intense discomfort. 

But he wasn’t V.IV Rusty anymore. He was just Rusty. Much like Raven was just Raven here. In his old childhood bedroom, the Coral war felt like a distant, abstract thing, and their roles right now were in flux. He could do this much. 

“I don’t know how we go back to that either, if we can. Broken trust is hard to repair,” Rusty palmed the back of his neck, bowing his head lower. “It’ll be hard, but if it’s something we both want, we can make it work, somehow. I just… I want you to know…”

He drew in a deep breath and forced himself to look up at Raven who was listening with an utterly blank face. 

“I won’t hurt or manipulate you. Or,” he faltered slightly. “I’ll try not to. I won’t do it intentionally, at least. If you can trust me in anything, you can trust me in that.”

Softer, he continued: “Okay? On this mission, and any other missions we’ll go on, I’ll watch your back if you watch mine. I won’t pretend to care, and I won’t lie to you anymore. I’ll leave it up to you to believe me but… I just wanted to say that. Clear the air.”

Raven was silent for a long moment. 

«It’s easy to say that,» he finally said, after setting aside his half-eaten mash. «Words don’t mean much.»

Rusty’s shoulders slumped. He understood, but at the same time, having his rare burst of honest earnestness rejected was… not nice. “Ah, yeah…”

«So, to show you mean it, I want you to do something for me.»

Rusty blinked, tilting his head curiously as Raven rose into a kneel from his cross-legged position. The mercenary was giving him a very hard stare, and it was enough to make Rusty unconsciously straighten his back. 

«Let me slap you.»

“Uh.” Rusty opened and closed his mouth a few times before settling on: “What?”

«Let me slap you.»

“I… you’ve already bitten me!” Rusty protested, waving around said hand. The bandages gleamed bright white under the fluorescent lights. “That’s punishment enough, right?”

Raven was silent, but his expression said it all: it was this or nothing. 

And… Rusty couldn’t say he didn’t deserve it. Not just for what he did to Raven, but to his fellow Rubiconians. Rusty had gotten off light for his crimes against them, even if it was for the greater good. A bite, a slap… they were all small, harmless punishments that paled in comparison to what he truly deserved. He had no right to protest. 

“...okay, fine.” Rusty drew in a deep breath and squared his shoulders, bracing himself. As slim and delicate as Raven looked, he was surprisingly strong. His slap will hurt. “Go ahead. Give me your worst.”

Raven nodded and lifted his hand. Rusty swallowed and closed his eyes as Raven wound up for a hit, fisting his hands into his trousers. It’ll hurt for only a bit, and be well deserved. He tensed when he heard the sharp rustle of fabric and whistle of air as Raven swung his hand forwards-!

…

…

Nothing happened. Confused, Rusty squinted an eye open-

“Ack!”

-and squeaked when Raven flicked his nose the moment he did. 

He flinched backwards so badly he almost toppled over, flailing a little wildly before he caught his balance. He slapped a hand over his stinging nose, staring in an almost betrayed way as Raven leant back, a brief, not-quite-smile softening his expression. 

“You- wha…?” Rusty stammered a little stupidly.

«You’re silly,» Raven simply said. «Physical punishment does nothing.»

Rusty boggled at him, bewildered at the sudden mood shift, but Raven seemed content with what just happened. The mercenary eyed his obvious confusion with faint amusement, though his expression slowly became solemn as he lowered his gaze to his communication device. 

«You were willing to take the hit, that’s enough for me,» he finally said. «But, it doesn’t mean I forgive you.»

Raven raised a hand to his mouth, chewing on his bitten down thumbnail for a moment. 

«But I can start to. Okay?»

“...okay, yeah,” Rusty murmured, letting go of his nose. “I can… I can work with that, buddy.” 

Raven nodded and stopped chewing his thumbnail in favour of picking up his half-eaten mash instead. Rusty averted his eyes, giving his nose one last rub before turning to stare up at his corkboard, with all the photos that detailed his childhood. 

As harsh as it had been, he wouldn’t trade it in for anything. The lack of food, the cold conditions, living most of his life underground, it had been hard, yeah, but he also had Uncle’s warmth and guidance, the love that the Rubiconians all harboured for each other, for their home, no matter how ravaged and wounded it was. It was why Rusty willingly suffered for them when infiltrating the Vespers - every dirty deal, every unforgivable sin, it had been all for them. He’ll go to hell, but at least he’ll go knowing that it was for something.  

Raven had nothing like that driving him. He was loyal to Walter because Walter was all he knew. Raven had no harsh childhood to form the bedrock of who he was, no community, no home. He was free in all the ways that were terrible, untethered and lacking in any real purpose. Rusty meant what he said, that there was nothing more dangerous than power without purpose…

But was that Raven’s fault? 

Rusty glanced at the mercenary. He had a bit of forgotten mash clinging to the corner of his mouth. 

(“Get to know Raven as he is, without having second or third hand accounts influencing you.”)

…as always, Uncle was right. 

“Buddy,” he said, as Raven set his now empty pot down. “You’ve got a bit of…” 

Raven blinked at him, and when Rusty mimed wiping his mouth, used his sleeve to crudely rub his mouth… and smeared the mash over his cheek instead. Rusty couldn’t help it, he laughed, a husky, bright sound that just bubbled out of him without thinking. Raven pursed his lips at him, just shy of a pout.  

There was potential for more, for Raven to start putting his roots down here instead. 

“Come here, buddy, let me clean it up for you.” 

And as Raven scooted a little closer to him, letting Rusty use the hem of his sleeve to wipe his cheek clean, he couldn’t help but feel like they’d started to take the first few tentative steps towards that potential. There was a long way to go, mind, and Rusty was sure that Raven would have flashes of anger towards him as he worked through his betrayed feelings, that Rusty might mess up again, or Raven might actually end up being an intolerable threat after all but… 

They’ll burn that bridge if they get there.

Chapter Text

“Talked it out, have you?”

Rusty jumped at Uncle’s unexpected voice, turning from where he’d been waiting for ORTUS’s cockpit to finish depressurising. They were standing on the boarding catwalk, the garage a hive of activity as usual as the final prepwork for deployment was rushed through. ORTUS’s battered ablative armour had been replaced from his fight with Freud, and what lingering damage remained was minor enough that a simple reconnaissance mission wouldn’t make it worse - or interfere with its capabilities. 

“What?” Rusty asked, before realising he meant Raven. “Oh, uh, I guess.”

Uncle smiled crookedly, something almost fond in his gaze as he landed a hand on Rusty’s shoulder. Even through the padded layer of his jacket, he felt the firm squeeze. 

“‘I guess’ is better than ‘no’, at least,” he sighed, giving Rusty a mild shake before letting him go. “I spoke to Raven before coming over here. I wanted to check that he was comfortable with using his new callsign for this mission, and for you to use Raven… as a way to get used to it.”

Rusty doubted he’d ever get used to it, shouldering an unintentionally stolen mantle. Even if Raven had stolen the name himself, he had made it his with his own skill and hard work. Rusty couldn’t see him as ‘621’ or just ‘Walter’s Hound’, dehumanising names that reduced him to an asset, a pet. Raven was the only name he had, and Rusty had taken it from him, even if only on the field. 

He’d been pondering such things, ever since Raven confessed his amnesia. No wonder he harboured so much resentment towards Rusty… even if it was accidental, Rusty kept snatching things away from him. He was lucky that Raven even tolerated him or was willing to give him a second chance. 

“He agreed to it, so be mindful of your comms going forwards,” Uncle continued, drawing Rusty out of his brooding before it darkened his mood. “Raven is mute, and you’ll need to imitate that. I know you like the sound of your voice, but-”

“Hey.” Rusty frowned. “I’m not that bad.”

“Rusty, I mean this with full affection, but you don’t know when to shut up sometimes,” Uncle sighed. “Especially in battle. You’re a veritable chatterbox. Just… keep yourself on mute to be safe. The moment you speak is the moment the deception falls apart.”

“Right…” Rusty would have to get very good at typing very quickly. “I’ll be sure to only talk on encrypted private comms.”

Judging by Uncle’s expression, he’d prefer if Rusty didn’t talk at all, but he didn’t say it. “Good. As for Raven’s callsign… did he tell you?”

“Ah, no, he didn’t.” Rusty rubbed the back of his neck. “We were busy talking about… something else, that it slipped my mind to ask.”

Uncle raised an eyebrow, his tone heavy with… implication as he said: “Something else?”

Rusty hesitated, news of Raven’s amnesia on the tip of his tongue. Raven had told him so readily and without hesitation that he felt like it wasn’t a big scandalous secret… but neither was it something he openly advertised. Prior to their fight in the Depths, Raven hadn’t admitted to it at all during their conversations on shared sorties, and they had brushed along the topic of Raven’s past a few times - he had always changed the subject or answered vaguely. Not once had he intimated that he had memory loss. 

It was something he should tell Uncle, and Raven was likely expecting Rusty to report it. This information would help Uncle understand Raven, contextualise a lot of his strangeness and inconsistencies - it’d be illogical for Rusty to keep it to himself, out of a vague (and late) respect of Raven’s privacy.

But… 

(“I’ll watch your back if you watch mine. I won’t pretend to care, and I won’t lie to you anymore.”)

He swallowed the words down. 

“Just… settling some things,” Rusty said vaguely, turning away when Uncle frowned. “Uh, anyway, I should probably get going. It’s a long journey to Enlil and back.”

“Hmm, alright,” Uncle said slowly, dropping the subject. “Be safe, Rusty.”

Rusty nodded. His cockpit had finished depressurising, and the hatch had swung open while he and Uncle had been talking. As he gripped the bar and stepped onto the ladder rung to climb in, he paused, realising: 

“Oh.” He turned slightly. “What’s Raven’s new callsign? You never said.”

“Atoll,” Uncle replied, looking faintly amused that Rusty had almost escaped the conversation before learning such a vitally important fact. “A curious name choice, right?”

“Atoll…” Rusty repeated. He’d seen one a few times: a circular islet in the middle of the ocean, possessing an internal lagoon protected from the open sea by its sturdy barrier reef. They were beautiful, and as a result the rich greedily laid claim to them, ruthlessly plundering their unspoiled nature to build gaudy vacation resorts on their white beaches, poisoning the water with waste and damaging the ecosystem with their cruise liners and irresponsible divers. 

He thought of Raven, and couldn’t help but think: it fits.

Raven was beautiful, but he’d been ruthlessly exploited by the rotten system that leashed everyone caught within its web. Rusty knew that he had more scars than the one that robbed him of his voice forever, and that inside of him were implants that he likely never really consented to, if what was said of the Old Gens were true. Uncle admitted as much: back then, you never said no if you were selected as a viable candidate for the Augmentation Programme.

Plundered, exploited and broken. Atoll. Raven. 

“Yeah,” Rusty said quietly, and turned back towards his cockpit. “Curious.” 

What a depressing name. 

The sun was setting by the time they departed the Warrens, the dying light dim against the frozen fog that lingered on the horizon. Idly, Rusty remembered Raven saying he preferred the dusk over the dawn, and wondered what it was he liked specifically. The Rubicon dusk was an eerie thing, the lingering Coral suffusing the atmosphere and twinkling alongside the stars, making them feel like they were caged within a snowglobe. 

But Rusty made no comment about it, and Raven didn’t share his thoughts either. They boosted alongside each other in utter silence, and within the first ten minutes, Rusty was already itching to break it. 

He distracted himself instead by discreetly scrutinising the AC Raven was now piloting. He’d seen it before, multiple times, but usually as a relic stashed away in Hangar One. It was blocky and industrious in the way all BASHO ACs were, but Rusty could pick out unique differences that set it apart from its mass-produced cousins: the Core was bulkier, likely to accommodate its extra Institute parts, and the flame emitting from its boosters were a deep, scarlet hue: Coral. 

The weapon loadout was what really caught Rusty’s interest. Raven tended to favour light weaponry that enabled hit-and-run tactics, but that wasn’t something the BASHO excelled at. Fitted with Kikaku boosters (or, so he assumed), the BASHO was good at rapidly closing the distance, but was sluggish in terms of overall manoeuvrability - comparatively to STALKER, that is. As such, BASHO was outfitted with a PB-003M ASHMEAD, also colloquially known as the ‘Pilebunker’ or the ‘AC Can Opener’, and a MA-J-200 RANSETSU-RF burst rifle, with the left shoulder favouring a SONGBIRD grenade cannon and the right a BML-G3 P05ACT-02 active homing missile launcher. 

It was an AC designed to pressure then obliterate its enemy at pointblank range. Rusty knew he didn’t want to get on the business end of a BASHO-powered Pilebunker right into the Core - the extra bulk and armour of the BASHO meant Raven would be able to tank hits STALKER would immediately crumple over. It… interested Rusty to know how Raven would adjust his usual fighting style. 

Just how adaptive would he be? AC pilots usually pigeon-holed themselves when it came to  piloting styles. It wouldn’t be easy for Raven to completely switch over from STALKER’s highly precise speed to BASHO’s lumbering but ‘hits-like-a-tank’ burst power. It was likely Raven would make mistakes, misjudge his quick-boost distance, or his generator’s recharge strength or output, while trying to adjust to his new AC. They should really find an easy combat mission for him to cut his teeth on…

Still, Rusty made mental adjustments to their combat strategy in case the worst happened and they were engaged by Vesper forces. Rusty would have to act as the decoy, the lure, to let Raven get in close with BASHO. Nothing new there… Rusty was used to playing as bait, but this time he’d have to be extra aware of Raven’s positioning and how much space he had to retreat. 

And blast range. That was important too. Rusty would have to be careful not to accidentally leap into the path of those homing missiles, or be too close when Raven fired the SONGBIRD. 

But even that only occupied Rusty’s mind for a short while, and the landscape of the ice fields was unchanging. With dusk came a lowered visibility, but there was no blizzard or heavy snow obscuring their ocular feeds, letting them just see the endless expanse of white and the strange, glittering sky above, the route plan a little glowing line on Rusty’s HUD. The monotony of it, and the silence, grated. 

So, he opened encrypted comms with BASHO. 

“Hey, bud- uh, Atoll,” he said. “How’s the new AC working for you?”

A nice, safe topic, he felt. Though he felt like they had somehow managed to bridge the gaping ravine between them, there was still a bit of an awkward uncertainty lingering over them. It was like starting over again from the Wall, where Rusty struggled to really get Raven and properly navigate a conversation with him that didn’t end with awkward silences or Rusty groping for something to say. 

Fortunately, Raven was in a receptive mood. After a short pause, a text response flickered across his HUD from ‘BASHO#04’. 

«Fine,» Raven said. «Sync is rougher, though.»

Sync…?

“How so?”

There was a lengthy pause before he got a reply back. 

«In my last AC, the processing centre handled the majority of data requests for complex tasks like targeting solutions or scan results, but in BASHO the processing centre offloads most of that onto the pilot’s implants. It’s a lot of work.»

Rusty winced in sympathy at that. While he didn’t doubt that Raven’s Gen Four implants could easily handle that demanding task, it likely wasn’t very pleasant to endure. Rusty knew when he overworked his implants, his brain felt like it had been microwaved and he had to lie down in a very dark room thinking of absolutely nothing for several hours before he felt like a human being again. 

“If it gets too much, let me know. We can take a break,” Rusty said. He couldn’t help but find it odd, though. Uncle wouldn’t’ve sent Raven on such a long mission if he knew it’d be so exhausting for him. Unless… 

“Did you tell the techies about the processing centre when taking BASHO out for testing?” he asked, already knowing the answer. 

«No.»

“Why not?”

Raven took his time replying. Maybe he didn’t know the answer himself. Maybe he just thought it wasn’t a big deal? Rusty was getting the impression that Raven was willing to endure a lot of discomfort if he viewed it as mandatory in some way, or that it’d be pointless to protest or argue against. Maybe Walter never listened to him, whenever he raised issues with his AC…?

«I didn’t think of it as an issue,’ Raven finally said. «I always get migraines after piloting. So it wouldn’t change anything, really.»

Rusty stared at those words for a very long time. 

“You… always get migraines?” Rusty said very slowly, knowing that this was not normal. Uncle said Old Gens suffered from various ailments, but he never got migraines every time he piloted, only if he overworked himself. So, either Raven was always giving 100% every time he piloted, or there was an underlying problem with his implants that no one had ever investigated… and who knew what the hell kind of implants Raven had, since his identity was god knows who. 

«Yes. Don’t you?»

“No…” Rusty debated his next words. “It’s, uh, not normal, b- Atoll. Not even Uncle gets migraines from just piloting, and he’s an Old Gen too.”

«I see.»

Raven appeared, worryingly, unbothered about this. 

“Maybe you should get it investigated?” Rusty suggested. “We’ve got a Tuner in the Warren’s medbay, though the results would have to be sent-”

«No.»

Rusty paused. Text conveyed no emotion, but he got the sense that that simple no carried a lot of aggression behind it. Raven usually let him finish speaking before responding, so the response stuck out as very curt… for him, that is. 

Still, he gently pushed his luck - gently. “You sure?”

«Yes.»

Rusty said nothing and the silence stretched. It was a tactic Uncle taught him when training him as his replacement, that sometimes just letting silence sit between you and your target prompted them to explain themselves, or offer up information to fill the void, but Raven was a stubborn nut. Rusty counted twelve whole minutes before Raven elaborated. 

«I don’t like medical environments.»

“I get that,” Rusty said softly. “I don’t like them either. But, migraines after piloting is usually a sign that there’s a dangerous problem with your implants. You know, in your post-op briefing-” Wait, Raven wouldn’t remember that. “I mean, there’s a list of symptoms you should watch out for, when you’re an augmented human. Things like, auditory hallucinations, or moments of depersonalisation, frequent migraines…”

«Are those not normal?»

Oh Jesus Christ. 

“Do you have all three of those symptoms?” Rusty asked, ensuring his tone was perfectly neutral. 

«Yes. My handler said it’s normal for Old Gens.»

Rusty was going to strangle Walter if they ever did fish him out of the Factory sane and alive. Normal? In what fucking reality was that normal? Yeah, it was normal for augmented humans suffering from catastrophic implant failure, not their day-to-day. God, so much about Raven was making so much horrible sense that Rusty wanted to walk out into the hills and scream for an hour. 

“It’s not normal,” Rusty gritted out. 

«For New Gens, maybe. For Old Gens, yes.»

it shouldn’t be! Rusty wanted to yell, but they had only just recently patched up their horribly strained relationship and he didn’t want to ruin the progress he had made. He breathed in deep instead, letting it out nice and slow, and counted to five. 

“Okay,” Rusty said. “Right. Well, can I ask you something?”

«Ok.»

“If you ever… start having hallucinations or anything like that, can you come find me?” Rusty asked. “I’m sure your handler didn’t leave you to your own devices whenever you had, uh, episodes, right?”

There was a pause. 

«No. He told me to find him when I had episodes.»

“Okay, so, do that with me - or Uncle,” he added hastily, in case Raven wasn’t comfortable enough to go to him while in a vulnerable state. “Just to make sure you don’t have a… a seizure or something.” As tended to be the inevitable conclusion of such symptoms in augmented humans. 

«Ok. I can do that.»

Rusty breathed a sigh of relief at Raven’s easy capitulation. Honestly, he’d expected a bit of a fight-

«Is it really that bad?»

“It’s…” Rusty wasn’t sure what to say. The sheer naivety behind that question - is it really that bad - astounded him. Did Raven really think it was normal, to constantly be in such pain and confusion, every single day? Maybe he did. If he remembered nothing, if his only frame of reference was piloting STALKER on Rubicon, maybe it really did seem like the norm to him. It wasn’t like any other pilot openly talked about their own experiences in being augmented. 

“You shouldn’t be in pain all the time, that’s all,” Rusty settled on. “Even if it’s just an Old Gen thing, there should be something we can do to mitigate it. That’s what I think.”

Raven was quiet for a long moment. 

«It’s ok. I’m used to it,» he finally settled on, like that made it fine. Maybe in Raven’s eyes, it did. 

“It’s not okay,” Rusty said. “You shouldn’t be used to it.”

«A lot of things shouldn’t happen, but they do. That’s life.»

“Doesn’t mean you should just lie down and take it,” Rusty pointed out, perhaps a little harsher than he intended. “If everyone followed that philosophy, the Liberation Front would’ve given up on reclaiming Rubicon decades ago.”

For a long moment, the only sound was a low rumble of STEEL HAZE ORTUS skating across the thick, frozen ice, interspersed with the metallic creaks and groans of its own weight. There was more Rusty wanted to say, but he knew he’d regret his words the moment he opened his mouth. Nothing agitated him more than passivity towards one’s own suffering, the grim acceptance of ‘well, this is how things are, i should just accept it’. Raven was better than that - should be better than that. 

«Sometimes the only option is to give up,» Raven finally said. «I hope you don’t ever understand that way of thinking, though.»

What was Rusty supposed to say to that? He stared dead ahead, at the unchanging landscape. By now the sun had sunk below the horizon, and the visibility was beyond poor. The nights were very dark here. 

“I don’t believe that,” Rusty murmured. “You should always try to fight. I mean, you understand that to some extent, don’t you?”

«What do you mean?»

“If the only option is to ‘give up’, then why didn’t you let Arquebus capture you?” Rusty had been thinking about that a lot, really. Why had Raven ran away despite the seeming futility of it? If that Arquebus patrol hadn’t caught up to him, then Raven’s only other option would’ve been to freeze to death. He had to have known that. But instead he aggressively fought his way out of an ambush and blindly fled into the wilds, desperate not to be caught. There was no giving in.

«It’s natural to run away from enemy capture,» came the evasive response. 

Rusty didn’t let him leave it at that, though. Like a dog with a bone, he stubbornly clung to the topic: “But you didn’t have a plan, did you? You had nowhere to go. Giving up would’ve ensured your survival, even if it would’ve been uncomfortable. In that situation it was the smartest choice, but you didn’t take it.”

Raven said nothing. 

“You fought back with everything you had, buddy, even if it made no sense,” Rusty murmured. “I think a part of you understands that even when shit happens, you don’t just lie down and take it. Sometimes… even if it’s crazy, or impossible, you have to fight. At least then you go down swinging.”

«Rusty.»

It was a breach of their mission parameters for Raven to even type his name, but Rusty didn’t call him on it. He’d already slipped up himself. He just waited, as the silence dragged between them. Overhead, the moon peeked out from behind a thick cloud, casting a silvery light on their surroundings. 

«I did?█▀??░? ░ＡѶ▀ Ｅ░ Ａ ｐ░?█ █ＡŇ

CONNECTION WITH BASHO#04 LOST

Instantly, Rusty cut power to STEEL HAZE ORTUS’s boosters, a flurry of snow being kicked up as the AC’s feet scraped along the ice to reduce its forward momentum. There was no blizzard, no environmental reason for him to have lost communication, yet when he turned, BASHO had stopped alongside him, the AC almost comically still despite the steam wreathing around them both from their rapid decceleration.  

“Raven?” Rusty barked, trying to re-engage comms, but no dice. ‘Interference,’ was all his HUD spat back at him, though it didn’t tell him much more. There were no error logs regarding his communication suite… yet when he tried to access the long range comms back to the Warrens, he achieved the same result: nothing. 

Shit. 

There were parts of Rubicon where the Coral density was enough to mess with comm frequencies, but this route was taken regularly by the RLF, and they meticulously annotated comm dead spots. This wasn’t one of them. Even more worrying: when he engaged his scanners, the results came back scrambled. Active jamming. 

Double shit. 

BASHO suddenly waved its arm, drawing Rusty’s attention back. The AC pointed at its head, roughly where its ear would be on a person, and made a cutting motion with its left hand. Rusty understood, and mimicked him. No comms on either side. 

Briefly, he debated their options. They could push forwards and hope they got out of the dead spot, or view this as Arquebus encroachment and retreat back to the Warrens. But, they were still quite close to the RLF base, less than a thirty minute ‘drive’ away by AC… if this was an Arquebus encroachment, then it was dangerously close. They should at least try to investigate what was causing this jamming…

As he came to this conclusion, Raven abruptly set off in a random direction. 

“Hey! Rav- ugh…” Rusty groaned before following.

He wasn’t quite sure what Raven was aiming for. The AC was plodding along manually, rather than using its boosters, and it started climbing a sort of ‘hill’ of solid frozen snow, its wide feet carving deep grooves as it ascended. Rusty delicately had ORTUS use these footholds to climb up after BASHO, and when they crested the hill…

He saw it. 

Heavily disturbed snow, deep furrows that looked like some sort of MT, or several, had been ambling around this very spot in a disorganised manner. More damningly, though, was some sort of automated transporter half-hidden beneath a coating of snow, and a tall, telescopic mast embedded into the ground, extending upwards with a few aerials and a satellite dish jutting out of the top. 

In the dark, it would’ve been near-impossible to spot. Rusty certainly hadn’t and they had practically been parallel to it. He marvelled at how the hell Raven knew it was here. But…

It was the disturbed snow that worried him. While there currently wasn’t a blizzard, snow was still falling, and there had been a blizzard earlier in the day. The only way such deep furrows would remain was if they’d been done within the last hour, and with the transporter still here… he doubted the owners of it had abandoned it, and this mast…

Raven pointed at the mast and then at BASHO’s head, making the cutting gesture once more. Rusty sort of understood. This mast was the source of the jamming?

“The hell is it…” he muttered to himself. It… looked like an old-school signal relay, the sort ground troops used when needing to extend their communication lines. The Liberation Front used some of these in the Belius region, piggybacking off old legacy comms that had survived the Fires. Arquebus did too, as well as Balam, but… nothing as rustic as this. 

Rusty tried interfacing it, but his AC’s electronic warfare suite was sharply rebuffed in its attempts. Whatever signal it was emitting, his AC couldn’t really make heads or tails of it. 

Well, if he couldn’t interface with it, then the only option was to destroy it. It obviously wasn’t owned by the Liberation Front, which meant it could only belong to Arquebus in some way - or some other third party… RaD, maybe? But they operated solely within the Belius region. An enterprising independent mercenary? But what reason would they have setting this up, unless they were working on contract for Arquebus?

Either way, it had to go. 

Rusty reached out to gently tap the mast. It stayed firmly in place, and neither did a nasty boobytrap explode in their faces. With that promising sign, he moved to grip onto it tighter, testing its foundations. It was embedded pretty deep, and ARMS OVERBURDENED flashed across his screen when he tried to yank it out of the ground. His AC wasn’t strong enough. 

Raven smacked his shoulder, and when Rusty turned, the mercenary comically flexed BASHO’s left arm before pointing at the mast. Right, Raven might have a better time of it. BASHO’s were just upscaled construction MTs. 

“If that doesn’t work, I’ll use my slicer,” Rusty said, before remembering comms were out. He sighed to himself as he stepped back, leaving the mast to Raven as he kept an eye out.

The hill gave him a good vantage point. He could see the tracks he and Raven had made, but he couldn’t see any tracks the transporter had made coming to this location. The layer of snow implied it had been there for hours too… so the MTs that had been here stayed for hours as well… 

Rusty ambled over to that transporter, ORTUS’s feet sinking deeply into the frozen snow. He made his AC kneel down, the joints creaking from the movement, and switched on his thermal vision. Stone cold. No heat signatures inside. In fact…

Switching back to visual light, Rusty gently lifted the transporter up a fraction to get a better look at the cab. There were no entry points for human drivers. Automated? They did exist, and Arquebus had a fleet of automatic transporters, but they only worked on clear routes with visible landmarks. The dumb AI they used wasn’t really all that smart at recalculating alternative routes ‘off-road’, and on Rubicon, where most of the road infrastructure was bombed to hell and back, human drivers were a precious resource. This automatic transporter shouldn’t’ve been able to drive here by itself…

Unless remote controlled? By one of the MT pilots?

Rusty lowered the transporter, lifting ORTUS’s head to do another visual scan of their surroundings. He couldn’t see anything, but there weren’t any tracks leading away from the mast either. It was as if the MTs had simply evaporated into thin air, or… engaged their weak boosters to fly a short distance away. That’d make sense if they didn’t want to leave tracks, but why leave the transporter? Unless they didn’t need it anymore? It would’ve been buried under snow after another day or two…

There was a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. There wasn’t any logic behind it, but the whole situation was adding up in a way that had his instincts immediately on alert. Slowly, he rose to his feet and engaged ORTUS’s combat mode. Immediately, the ammunition feeds to his weapons unlocked, and his FCS came online, priming targeting solutions for the moment an enemy crossed his line of sight. 

In his periphery, he saw BASHO step back from the mast. It was still upright, but was now leaning heavily to the left. Loosened, but not uprooted. 

Rusty raised ORTUS’s hand, intending to catch Raven’s attention and try and pantomime a suggestion to ready himself for combat, when-

[BEEPBEEP!]

His body reacted to the shrill incoming warning before he’d even consciously processed it. ORTUS leapt upwards in a boost-powered jump, narrowly avoiding the crackling plasma whip slicing towards his Core and feeling it clip ORTUS’s left leg instead. His AC rapidly compensated for the unexpected impact, but he didn’t get a chance to orient himself. 

A bolt of bright blue energy seared across ORTUS’s shoulder, leaving a deep burn gouge through the armour and almost knocking him off balance in midair. Attitude stability warnings shrieked across his HUD, his AC threatening to stall if he took another solid hit like that, and saw the glint of the plasma whip surging towards him again.

Any other pilot might’ve floundered in a panic. Rusty, instead, felt his thoughts turn flat and cold and focused. He quick-boosted backwards - the plasma whip missing him by inches - and backwards again, until ORTUS’s feet landed in the snow, sending up a thick flurry as he kited left, another beam of blue energy skimming his right leg. 

His HUD was a mess of warnings and battlefield information, and what he got was this: only two enemies identified on the field, with one aggressively pursuing him, plasma whip snaking and lashing through the air, and the other contending with Raven, who was barrelling through the plasma whip strikes and putting that Pilebunker to good use. 

The sharpshooters sniping at them, however, weren’t coming up on his short range combat radar. MDD? The jamming? Rusty couldn’t spot them, visibility was poor, but energy strength dropped off quickly at range. They had to be reasonably close - within two hundred to three hundred metres - for that hit to scour through ORTUS’s armour like that. He had to put those on the backburner for now - luckily their aim was only good when their prey was caught off-guard, and they oddly fired in a very rigid yet predictable rhythm - and focus on the melee fighter. 

Rusty paused his retreat to assault-boost forward, hoping to take the enemy by surprise - he did. The odd MT - with a design he’d never seen before - seemingly faltered at his charge, and took ORTUS’s foot to the face at full pelt. The lighter MT went staggering backwards, just in time for ORTUS’s FCS to lock on: he fired his TRUENO needle launcher at point-blank. 

The hypervelocity needles tore through the MT’s round frame, shredding the armour and tearing a massive chunk of its Core away from the main body. The MT jerked violently, blue energy spluttering and sparking from its joints and the gaping hole - Rusty hastily quick-boosted away just as the MT exploded in a surge of energy, debris flying everywhere and rending most of the pieces as molten slag. 

“Self-destruct-?” Rusty exclaimed, and almost lost ORTUS’s head to a sharpshooter from his momentary surprise. He quickly refocused, checking on Raven- 

His own enemy MT had gone the same was as his: exploded, and Raven was now moving erratically, clearly trying to pinpoint where the sharpshooters were coming from: but the bastards kept moving after each salvo, and with their scanners jammed, it was near impossible to find this in this low visibility. 

Jammed…

Rusty immediately pivoted towards the mast and charged for it. Energy shots peppered at him aggressively, but he weaved around them, engaging his laser slicer. The ‘blade’ cleaved through the mast easily, severing it neatly in two. As its upper half toppled into the snow, Rusty also stomped on the aerials and satellite dish for good measure, crushing the delicate metal underneath ORTUS’s foot. 

Instantly, a flurry of words crossed over his HUD as BASHO#04 reconnected: 

«Rusty no comms. No comms. Jamming. I think its this mast. Can this send? SEND. Ghost mechs. Rusty: ghost mechs, mdd, jamming, BEWARE.»

Rusty only glanced over them, but ‘ghost mechs’ stood out to him. He boxed it up and set it aside for later, engaging his scanners and rereading the updated battlefield information on his HUD. Two more enemies, just under two hundred metres out- Raven was charging them and one was- 

“Shit, Ra- Atoll! One of them’s running!” Rusty barked, engaging ORTUS’s boosters. The MTs were fast, almost squirrelly so, and Raven’s lumbering BASHO wouldn’t be able to keep up. 

Leaving Raven to contend with the sharpshooter that had stubbornly stayed, ORTUS blasted over the snow in a rapid assault-boost, closing the distance between him and the fleeing MT. When he got close enough that his FCS locked on, however, the MT spewed out a cloud of silvery chaff, scrambling his FCS as the MT itself rippled into nothingness. 

“Damn it!” Rusty snarled, spiralling away from that jamming cloud and trying to scan - no dice. Didn’t pick up anything. He scanned the snow instead, seeing tracks sharply veer west, and he pivoted to try and chase- 

When a sudden bark of kinetic fire snapped across the battlefield, and the invisible MT burst back into existence over a hundred metres away, sparking and shuddering from the unexpected assault. Rusty hesitated, then gaped when TSUBASA came flying out of the misty darkness to slam its foot down on the stunned MT, keeping it firmly in place. 

“Uncle?!” Rusty yelped. 

“What did I tell you about staying on mute in battle?” Uncle scolded him. “Where’s Atoll?”

«Here.»

BASHO came trundling up from behind ORTUS, its Core armour peppered with burn scars and a thin groove from where it had taken a plasma whip full force - but was still sturdily intact. They sure built BASHO ACs to last, Rusty couldn’t help but think.

“What happened to the last guy?” Rusty asked. 

«Self-destructed.»

The stunned MT under TSUBASA’s foot suddenly started to jerk and tremble, energy sparking from its seams- 

Rusty didn’t even have to bark a warning. Uncle immediately quick-boosted away, as did Raven and Rusty, and with a catastrophic detonation of bright blue energy, the last MT exploded with enough force to reduce it to nothing more than a pile of melted and twisted metal - beyond any sort of recognition or analysis. 

“The hell…” Rusty muttered. “No one ejected.”

«No life signs in them,» Raven said. 

“AI controlled, then.” Uncle sounded grim, and slowly, all three of them congregated in a loose circle, their sensors on high-alert in case any other of these mysterious mechs popped out of the snow. 

“Uncle…” Rusty began, and settled for the most obvious question first. “Why’re you here?”

“I wanted to keep an eye on you both,” Uncle said shamelessly. “Needless to say, I didn’t expect your mission to get so exciting. If anything, I thought the biggest threat would be you two arguing and getting distracted…”

Rusty frowned, a bit stung that Uncle distrusted him enough to think he’d be so unprofessional on a mission, but he swept that aside to pout over later. They had bigger fish to fry, namely: 

“Do you know who those guys were?” 

“No.” Uncle’s tone was grim. “I’ve never seen them before. Perhaps they’re… black-op mechs employed by the PCA?”

“Arquebus cleaned out everything the PCA had in their foundries,” Rusty said. “They wouldn’t’ve passed up on a mech capable of this level of cloaking. The design too… it’s not like PCA’s usual aesthetic…”

But Rusty paused, his gaze catching on Raven’s messages lingering in the corner of his HUD. 

(‘Ghost mechs.’)

And throughout this conversation, Raven was being pointedly quiet. Suspicion churned in Rusty’s gut, but he forced himself to set it aside, to ensure his tone wasn’t accusatory as he asked, lightly: “Hey, Atoll, do you have any ideas?”

There was a considerable pause - almost tense, as BASHO adjusted its weight fractionally, its joints creaking from the movement. Rusty felt his heart beat wildly, unsure of what it’d mean if Raven lied and said no, or if it even would be a lie. He wondered if he should be ashamed, that he so quickly reverted to suspicion with Raven, over the hint that he knew something he didn’t bother to tell them, but… 

Rusty just had a bad feeling.

«They’re ghost mechs. At least, that’s what I call them,» Raven finally replied. «They’ve attacked me before.»

“Attacked you?” Uncle repeated, the frown audible in his voice. “When? How frequently?”

«At least five times, discounting this event. They were at unexpected locations as well, such as BAWS Arsenal No 2, Watchpoint Delta, Grid 086 and Xylem City.»

Rusty and Uncle both digested this. 

There was a lot Rusty wanted to ask, such as ‘what were you doing at watchpoint delta?’ or ‘what were you doing at xylem city???’ but he stayed quiet, getting the sense that they were wading into something very complicated and dangerous here. One particular location snagged his attention, though: BAWS Arsenal No 2. He remembered that mission, remembered that Arquebus had also been disquieted at the foundry going completely silent - BAWS had been a reliable supplier of ammunition, after all. 

Raven had investigated the foundry at the behest of the Liberation Front, and the report Walter had sent stated that it had been a PCA raid. BAWS had been hiding a Coral well in its basement. Everyone accepted this explanation at face value. The PCA were known for their ruthlessness in cracking down on Coral syphoning.

But if it wasn’t them, why did Walter lie? Something wasn’t adding up. 

“...........Walter told us that it was a PCA raid that had knocked Arsenal No 2 offline,” Uncle said very, very, very mildly. A dangerous tone.

«Maybe he assumed that at the time.»

“Uncle?” Rusty murmured. 

“Raven, I’m going to ask you something, and it’s vitally important that you answer honestly,” Uncle said. “Do you know who these ghost mechs belong to?”

«No.»

“Do you know why they’re attacking you?”

Notably, there was a significant pause. 

“Raven,” Uncle pressed, his tone hard. 

«I don’t know how to explain. I’m sorry,» Raven finally said. «Their encrypted comms are impossible to crack without corruption, so I only managed to get some information, but that information doesn’t make much sense to me. I’m sorry. I don’t know.»

“Hey, that’s fine, buddy. It’s okay that you don’t know,” Rusty said, keeping his tone nice and neutral, the carrot to Uncle’s very firm stick. He could tell Raven was getting nervous, agitated. Uncle’s sharp tone combined with the fact that Rusty and Uncle outnumbered Raven in an unfamiliar AC was likely making him beyond tense. 

“...yes, that’s fine. I should be the one to apologise, Raven,” Uncle sighed, the edge bleeding out of his tone. “You’re not to blame for Walter’s subterfuge. What little information you have… can you share it with us? Three heads are better than one, as they say.”

BASHO seemed to fidget, like Raven was torn between bolting or firmly staying in place. After a lengthy pause:

«Ok. The only information I have was that I was targeted as ‘a threat to the Coral Release Project’. These comms were cracked when they ambushed both myself and G5 Iguazu at Grid 086. That is all I know.»

“Coral Release Project…?” Rusty mused aloud. Anything with the name ‘project’ in it never meant anything good. 

“I see. That’s… troubling.” TSUBASA leaned back fractionally, its arms moving as if to cross them, before realising the limitations of its own joints. “Coral Release Project. That’s not a term I’ve come across in either the PCA or the Corps.”

“You don’t think there’s another faction on this planet, do you?” Rusty asked wearily. “It has to be something from the Corps. They’re fond of their projects. You’d think we’d know if someone else had an interest in Rubicon.”

“No… I don’t know. We have very little information, and our only source has decided to blow themselves up to avoid interrogation.” TSUBASA idly kicked at the debris littering the ground. “But there’s one thing we do know…”

Uncle turned to Raven. “They have a deadly interest in you, Raven. As you say, they’ve identified you as a direct threat to their project. It stands to reason that so long as you’re around, they’ll keep appearing.”

“But, if you want me to pretend to be Raven…” Rusty said slowly. 

“We’ll need to be very careful, moving forwards,” Uncle said grimly. “Rusty, it won’t just be Arquebus… it’ll be these ‘Ghost Mechs’ that’ll be after you too. For now, it may be safer for Raven to hide beneath another callsign, at least until we know more about these mechs.”

«Can we analyse the mast?» Raven asked. 

Uncle made a questioning noise, but Rusty remembered immediately. “Oh! The mast- Uncle, the reason we stopped was because we encountered a dead spot. For some reason, these Ghost Mechs set up a mast that was emitting a jamming signal.”

“Show me,” Uncle ordered. 

Rusty led the way, backtracking to the original site. The transporter had been cleaved in two by the enemy’s plasma whip, and the mast was half-buried in the snow, its aerials and satellite dish nothing but crumpled metal from being aggressively stomped on by ORTUS. 

“Uh, I wasn’t sure what, exactly, was emitting the jamming signal,” Rusty said sheepishly when TSUBASA stared at him for a long moment. 

“Well, I’m sure we can extract something from its internal components, maybe,” Uncle sighed. “And this transporter… maybe we can trace its origin point.”

After a thoughtful pause, Uncle turned to face him and Raven. “You two, return to base. I think it’s safe to say that this route is no longer viable for us to use. Get some rest, and I’ll call you both for a debriefing tomorrow morning.” 

“Understood, Uncle,” Rusty said, with Raven sending his own acknowledgement. “What about you?”

“I’m going to scout the area,” Uncle said. “Something is… bugging me.”

Rusty frowned, but he didn’t verbally protest leaving Uncle alone in a frozen wasteland where invisible enemies may be skulking in a snowdrift somewhere. He just made a mental note to return here in three hours if Uncle hadn’t returned to base by then, and left without a word. 

The journey back to base was quietly sombre. Raven was silent, and Rusty was still processing yet another concerning fact about Raven that he had learned against his will. Just who were these Ghost Mechs? Just what was the Coral Release Project? And how did Raven tie into it all? 

you really can’t catch a break, can you? Rusty thought wryly. He hadn’t forgotten the other stuff either.

“Hey, buddy,” Rusty finally broke the quiet. “You holding up okay?”

«I’m ok. I didn’t sustain any injuries in the fight.»

not what i was asking, Rusty sighed. 

“I just mean about Uncle’s interrogation,” he said. “I got the feeling it made you a bit rattled.”

«I’m fine.»

Rusty waited, but Raven didn’t add anymore. The conversation stagnated, Rusty chewing over his next words while Raven was as silent as the grave. He recalled before they left, how tense and worried Raven had been over Uncle being ‘mad’ at him, for ‘disobeying an order’... 

He felt like there was a deep-rooted issue with authority there. That Raven had been conditioned to expect severe punishment for the slightest infringement - was Walter a harsh handler? In their shared sorties before the Depths, Raven had been swift to defend Walter’s reputation, to insist he was a good handler… but why the fear? Why the rigid adherence to obeying his superior? Was it lingering trauma from his forgotten past? Or was there a darker side to Raven’s relationship with Walter?

There was so much he didn’t know about Raven, so much he’ll never know about Raven, but the few puzzle pieces he had assembled into an extremely concerning picture. It left him confused… on how to even treat him, how to approach him. 

It made Rusty so angry too. Angry at what Raven had clearly suffered through, angry he’ll never know who was really responsible for it all. 

This damn galaxy. Sometimes he couldn’t help but think it rotten to the core. 

“...when we get back to base, let me know if your migraine is bad,” Rusty murmured. “I’ll see if I can get you some painkillers for them.”

«Ok.»

Nothing more was said for the rest of the journey, but that was fine. It gave Rusty time to think, to ponder this potential new threat against Rubicon.

Coral Release Project…

He couldn’t help but remember, vaguely, in the shadowy haze of his childhood, when Father Dolmayan was a rallying figure in the Liberation Front, a fiery, passionate believer of the Coral Spirit, the creator of the battlecry: “Forged in ash, we fight as one!” His sermons did a lot to temper the morale of the freedom fighters, to keep their hopes alive when logic told them it was all pointless. 

Rusty didn’t really buy into the Coral Spirit stuff. It was a resource, a powerful resource, but that was it. Maybe he spent too long on Earth, losing his spiritual connection so thoroughly, but he did still recall the hymns and the scriptures. He doubted any self-respecting Rubiconian could ever forget them completely. 

And hearing ‘Coral Release’...

(“Coral, abide with Rubicon. Coral, endure within us all. For none of us shall cast the die!”)

There was something eerie about it, remembering Dolmayan’s thunderous voice as he bellowed those words, followed by the edict: the Coral must not be set free! Echoed by the rising cries of loyal Rubiconians. The Coral must not be set free. It mustn’t be free.

Rusty hadn’t understood the message at the time. Thought he meant they shouldn’t allow the Corps to steal the Coral, to ‘free’ it from Rubicon to be consumed and exploited for commercial and warmongering reasons. But now he wondered… he wondered…

Just what was Coral, really? Was it really true, what Father Dolmayan had espoused? Was it really true that the Coral was actually… alive? And if so… was it sentient? Did it have its own thoughts, its own dreams, its own ambitions for Rubicon?

Those Ghost Mechs didn’t have pilots. The transporter was automated. 

The Ice Worm had been a C-Weapon, and didn’t fully obey the PCA’s commands. Instead of destroying him and Raven, it had beelined for Watchpoint Alpha, had aggressively guarded its entrance like Cerberus to the underworld… and in Institute City, if the intercepted Arquebus comms were to be believed, a C-Weapon had autonomously attacked Raven to defend the Convergence. 

AI, Arquebus and the Liberation Front had dismissed. Institute AI obeying the final orders of its creators. 

But what if-

It sounded crazy, even in the privacy of his own head, but he couldn’t dislodge the idea now that he’d thought it. There’d be no other explanation as to how a whole other faction had slipped so far beneath the notice of the Corps, the Liberation Front and the PCA. Not if that faction had been here from the very beginning, ever since the Fires, since before the Fires, lurking in the background unseen and overlooked. 

Rusty sat there and processed the possibility… and felt an unnerved shiver crawl down his spine. 

God. He really hoped he was wrong.

Chapter Text

“Interesting…”

Flatwell’s murmur was barely audible over the howl of the wind, the broken edges of the bisected transporter creaking and groaning. A thin layer of snow was already collecting on the inside, and as the night crept onwards, the temperature plunged lower, forcing Flatwell to occasionally sweep a hand over his helmet’s visor to clear it of frost. 

His flight suit and the coat thrown over it was designed to keep his body temperature at survivable levels despite extreme conditions, but he was toeing the line of its limits right now. Flatwell still lingered though at his spot in front of the transporter’s cockpit, which really was just a small space for a human to configure its settings before letting it trundle off into the wilderness with its payload. 

Hacking wasn’t really Flatwell’s thing, but the Coral within his implants was normally enough to aid him in bruteforcing what he lacked in finesse and skill to achieve. However, as a Gen Three, his Coral levels were low compared to the other Old Gens, so his hacking abilities were still incredibly limited, but to dig into the guts of a bog-standard automatic transporter… 

It was enough. 

This transporter had no corporate affiliation and everything about it from its production code and serial number was scrubbed from the system. It was a complete blank slate, with the only information found within it being the last journey it had logged - and even then, Flatwell knew he only had half of the information, since the journey supposedly ‘began’ in the middle of fucking nowhere just north of Watchpoint Alpha. 

Basically useless information, right? Wrong.

The journey likely ‘began’ there because that was the limit of its master’s ability to connect remotely with the transporter. Combined with their mech’s elusive nature, and assumed ‘no witnesses’ approach to dealing with complications, then Flatwell was confident in saying that the owner of this transporter had completely scrubbed everything inside of it at the very limit of their reach, before sending it off with just the coordinates for here. Its origin point was too out there to link it back to anything. It could’ve come from an Arquebus outpost, a Balam outpost, or even a PCA one (that was now Arquebus-owned). 

But there was something interesting in its originating point, and Flatwell began to assemble a few puzzle pieces he had for a while now, but could never quite connect right. 

But he’d had to go there to confirm it for himself… 

Flatwell tapped his gloved finger against the frosted over monitor of the transporter, considering his options. He could go there now, before this mysterious faction realised their scouting party - or whatever these mechs were supposed to be - had been compromised. But on the off-chance they already knew, Flatwell might walk into a trap… and if he did, that might give him vital information on what they’re dealing with. 

Rusty will be furious, he thought ruefully as he exited the transporter. TSUBASA was in a low crouch over the transporter, shielding it from the worst of the wind, snow already blanketing it. Flatwell began scaling his AC, experience and skill letting him easily find the necessary handholds and footholds to clamber up its bent leg, sidle sideways along its waist, and continuing on his journey along its ‘spine’, until he reached the hatch for his cockpit. 

He climbed inside, met with blissful warmth that was blunted slightly by the biting wind that followed him inside. Flatwell brushed off the melting snow and ice from his flight suit and helmet visor, flexing his hands to restore blood flow to frost-nipped fingers. Outside, he could hear the wind howling even through several layers of military-grade steel. 

“I’ll take a brief look, just to confirm something,” Flatwell muttered, and resynchronised with TSUBASA. “I’ll leave if it gets too dangerous.”

With that plan in mind, TSUBASA rose to its feet with a groan, snow dislodging from its frame and wisping away into the wind. Flatwell orientated them both southwards, towards the transporter’s originating coordinates…

“Raven!”

The shout echoed down the hallway, the acoustics of the subterranean tunnels making it outstay its welcome by a few seconds. C4-621 turned slowly from where he’d been checking around a corner, his gaze hooded as Rusty came trotting towards him in an unusual rush.

He pulled his communication device out of his pocket, but didn’t get a chance to input a single letter before Rusty reached him. 

“There you are,” Rusty said breathlessly, his cheeks pink with a faint flush of exertion. “The techies said you just left without saying anything. Are you doing okay, buddy?”

C4-621 stared at him in open bafflement. 

“...because, you know…” Rusty continued slowly, looking like he was fighting the urge to fidget. “You said you got migraines, and that syncing with BASHO was rougher than STALKER…”

Oh. 

C4-621’s expression cleared at the clarification, though his confusion remained. They had returned from their aborted mission less than twenty minutes ago, and while C4-621 remembered Rusty mentioning something about his migraines, he’d been half-listening to him at best, and ignoring him at worst. Their encounter with the Ghost mechs, and Flatwell’s angry suspicion over Walter’s incomprehensible subterfuge…

…I told you he was up to something…

C4-621 charitably ignored Ayre’s grumble (they were currently in a disagreement over Walter’s trustworthiness). In any case, he’d been ruminating over the Ghost mechs and what it meant for himself - if the Ghost mechs kept interfering in C4-621’s missions, would the RLF deem him too problematic to house and use? He remembered Walter saying he’d investigate them, and not to worry about them, but Walter was… temporarily indisposed, and C4-621 was as clueless as he was about them ever since the first one ambushed him on his very first mission on Rubicon. 

In addition… C4-621 admitting his defective nature to Rusty might’ve been a mistake. He thought most augmented humans had migraines after synchronisation, but it seemed that C4-621 and the very few he were acquainted with were the exception, and not the norm - according to Rusty, at the very least. 

So, hunted by a mysterious third party with access to highly advanced technology, and defective. C4-621 was uncomfortably aware of how perilous his position was right now. He had to ensure he was as convenient as possible… he had to be useful… not inconvenient or defective… useful… 

(His recollection was jumbled, fuzzy from the fog of torpor and overwhelmed by the burning ache in trembling limbs, but he still remembered the light flashing into his eyes as overhead, a distant, gravelly voice muttered: ‘This Old Gen is fucking useless. If that dog handler doesn’t buy him, we’ll sell him to the Coral recycler-’)

“Buddy.”

Rusty’s hand gently touched his shoulder - just his fingertips, really - but C4-621 still flinched automatically, taking a quick backstep. Rusty hurriedly raised his hands in a sign of universal surrender, before slowly lowering them. 

“You were zoning out,” Rusty said, resting his hands on his hips. C4-621 eyed them warily. “Are you actually okay? I know our mission got a little… complicated, but…”

C4-621 looked away, but kept Rusty in his periphery. 

«I’m fine,» he said.

“You sure?”

C4-621 nodded, still not looking at him. 

Rusty sighed quietly, and he shifted his weight from one leg to the other as he crossed his arms. A tense silence blanketed them, C4-621 unsure on if he should say anything, or just continue on his way. His head hurt, and not from the rough synchronisation with BASHO - he was thinking so hard about these Ghost Mechs, trying to assemble disjointed pieces together in hopes that presenting a coherent intelligence report on them would soothe Flatwell’s ire towards him and Walter for the dishonest BAWS Arsenal No 2 mission report. Granted, C4-621 had no idea why Walter had lied, but he had to have done it for a good reason-

Raven… you have to consider that Walter might not be…

C4-621 was bad at this, trying to decide on what to do without clear guidelines set down by his handler. Walter hadn’t wanted anyone to know about the Ghost Mechs for some reason… C4-621 had been attacked by them multiple times now… but Walter always told him he was looking into it, not to worry about it, just kill them whenever they harassed him, they’re unimportant, just focus on your job, 621… 

It was confusing. They seemed important. Shouldn’t he try to figure them out so the RLF knows the scope of their threat? Should he not, to continue Walter’s secrecy over them? C4-621 wasn’t sure what the correct choice was. 

…there’s no ‘correct choice’, Raven. Only what you think is right.

What did he think was right? It made him intensely uncomfortable to realise it, but he felt the right thing would be… to tell the RLF everything he knew about the Ghost Mechs… even if it wasn’t something Walter would want…

But if it wasn’t something Walter wanted, then he shouldn’t-

“Hey. How’s your head?” Rusty asked quietly, breaking C4-621 out of his spinning thoughts. “Is your migraine bad?”

There was no point lying about it, so C4-621 said: «It’s standard.»

“Okay,” Rusty said. His voice had that patient edge to it, the one that all but screamed ‘I am counting to five repeatedly in my head’. “What’s ‘standard’ to you?”

His skull feeling like it weighed several hundred pounds heavier than it was, his eyeballs feeling like they were being cooked in a microwave and all the jelly in them were trying to turn into plasma, every glint of light stabbing directly into his eyesockets and through his grey matter like molten hot pokers. It was a pain C4-621 had grimly built a tolerance to, though, and he only had to worry if he started seeing weird shapes and colours from too loud noises, and got that tingly, electrified feeling, like someone hard curled a barbed hook around his nervous system and was trying to rip it out through his spine. That usually required him to spend almost twelve hours completely motionless in a pitch black, silent room before it became dangerously worse.

He said none of this, though. 

«Headache, light sensitivity, tiredness. The pain is mild,» C4-621 said. «I’ll be ok by morning.»  

“I think you and I have a very different definition of ‘mild pain’ and ‘being okay’,” Rusty sighed, his tone wry. 

But he - thankfully - didn’t press the issue. He just gave him a scrutinising look, no doubt taking in C4-621’s pallor and how his eyes were squinted half-shut, before leaving it at that. It was clear he wasn’t happy about it, but Rusty was learning how to pick his battles with him, which was good. 

“But alright. Just let me know if it gets worse,” Rusty said, though he sounded like he knew full well C4-621 wasn’t going to say shit if it got worse. “Are you going to sleep it off now?”

«Shower, then attempt to sleep.»  

“Attempt, huh…” Rusty’s tone was commiserating, and he rubbed the back of his neck. C4-621 turned towards him a little more, chancing a quick glance to take in Rusty’s face. He looked tired, with dark bruises under his eyes and a haggard air about him. Everyone always looked rundown to some degree on Rubicon, but Rusty looked tireder than most nowadays. 

So, tentatively, he asked: «Are you okay?»  

“I’m fine.” Rusty flashed a smile that was warm but thoroughly fake, the gesture so quick it had to be automatic. “Nothing a good night’s sleep won’t solve.” 

«Can you have that?»  

“Hm?”

«A good night’s sleep.»  

Rusty’s smile remained but he didn’t immediately reply. He turned his head fractionally, his gaze lowering to the floor before flicking back to him. Searching for words, for a good lie, C4-621 assumed, but he held no judgement towards him for it. Lying about one’s health so you didn’t worry others was normal. He did it just a minute ago.

…but it’s not healthy.

No one was healthy on Rubicon. 

“Well,” Rusty began breezily. “I don’t get as many as I’d like, but sure. What about you? I hear Old Gens struggle with sleeping sometimes. O’Keeffe - V.III, I mean - never slept once, as far as I could tell. He just lived off coffee and micro-naps barely lasting a few seconds long. I really don’t get how he’s still alive, really.”

C4-621 listened to Rusty ramble, recognising the deflection for what it was. He contemplated pushing the issue, but much like how Rusty dropped the subject with his migraines, he decided to do the same with his poor sleeping habits. It wasn’t as if C4-621 could help him, anyways. It’d be a pointless discussion. 

«I need a shower,» C4-621 said to change the subject, uncaring of how abrupt or clumsy it was. «I smell.»  

“Uh.” Rusty blinked twice rapidly, an involuntary half-laugh leaving him before he quickly tamped it down. “Well, now that you mention it…”

«You smell too,»   C4-621 added, and continued on his way without a backwards glance. 

It took almost ten seconds before he heard Rusty’s footfalls follow him - a steady stride that slowed to match his shambling pace. C4-621 watched him in his periphery, wondering if he was going to follow him to his cell and then to the shower block. To supervise him, maybe? Rusty liked to hover, but whether that was because of his distrust of him, or something else… 

“Hey, buddy,” Rusty said, breaking the stilted silence between them. “Since we both apparently smell, why don’t we shower together?”

Rusty was too tall, so all C4-621 could see of his face in the corner of his eye was his lower jaw - a bit of stubble was starting to darken it now - and his mouth curved into a very slight smile. Broad shoulders softened by his bulky coat thrown over his dark flight suit. Different enough that it wasn’t a 1:1, but with enough similarities that-

(“Hey, Four,” Asset 06 said, his helmet tucked under arm and his blue eyes expectant, mouth curved into a self-confident smile. “I’ve still got some energy to burn off, so why don’t we shower together-?”)

C4-621 forced himself to look at the floor, his stomach feeling painfully knotted.

“I mean- in different stalls,” Rusty abruptly said, followed by an awkwardly embarrassed laugh. “Together, but, not together, you know? Just, both of us, showering in different stalls. Separately. We don’t… ugh, I worded that badly.”

«You did,» C4-621 said, but he felt that knot loosen. 

“Guess I’m more tired than I thought,” Rusty sighed. “Sorry.”

C4-621 raised his head a little, peeking back up at him to see Rusty roughly yanking his fingers through his hair, forcing some strands to stand upright. The tips of his ears were red. It was an unexpectedly boyish look on him.

I don’t understand why he’s embarrassed. Isn’t communal bathing normal for humans?

C4-621 fought down a grimly amused smile at Ayre’s innocent query, ducking his head low just in case he wasn’t able to hide it. Ayre was clinically knowledgeable about many things regarding humans - their biological processes and basic social structures - but when it came to things like, suggestive phrasing, flirting, the very messy aspects of relationships and sex, Ayre was clueless. C4-621 didn’t mind that, though. He only understood a little bit himself, and that was only because of his own unpleasant experiences…

He forced his thoughts to divert from that path, and instead tried to lighten the mood. 

«It’s fine. I’m ok with us showering together,» he said.

“...” Rusty turned towards him. “In separate stalls, right?”

C4-621 pocketed his communication device and kept walking. 

“Right?”

They went into separate stalls, obviously. 

It was probably a little mean teasing Rusty like that, though, as it turned out he was startlingly bashful when it came to sexual jokes. His face had been a ridiculous shade of red right up until C4-621 had pointedly stepped into a different stall and pulled the separating curtain between them. Rusty was such a silly creature, sometimes. 

I still don’t understand how it’s supposed to be embarrassing…

C4-621 huffed in amusement, shedding his flight suit and hearing Rusty do the same in the other stall. He felt grimy from dried sweat, a hint of musk wafting around him as he squirmed his way out of the flight suit and set it atop of Rusty’s jacket, hiding the snarling wolf emblem from view. The air was cold, frigidly so, and goosebumps prickled over his skin. 

In what felt like routine now, as he waited for the shower to heat up from frigidly cold, C4-621 took a moment to gently trace the scars that littered his body, surgically neat and precise, vivid yet thin, old yet somehow still raw. It gave his skinny limbs a mannequin look to them, and he pressed his fingertips to the ‘Y’ scar that dominated his front, following its path over his sternum and down, to where it stopped just short of his navel. 

…

He had no emotional attachment to these scars.

He touched them, felt their ridges and the tingling ache when he pressed down, but felt no certain way about them. They were just there, like how a freckle would be there, a natural part of himself that had been there since he’d been (killed) born. He turned over his left arm, scrutinising the scar that travelled along the inside of his forearm and all the way up to his elbow. 

If he stared long enough, he did get a vague sense of… something. A peculiar sort of deja vu but with a memory that was more haze and obscure shapes than anything really defined, a jolt of emotion too complicated to parse spearing through his viscera. He had no emotional attachment to these scars, but still… he felt like there was something deeply buried in his subconsciousness that only stirred when he stared at them, a faint echo… 

…a ghost.

Asset 04’s spectre haunted him still, leaving indelible imprints on him that lurked like naval mines in the quagmire that was C4-621’s subconsciousness. The most random things triggered disjointed and alien surges of emotion in him, impressions, half-remembered thoughts that had nothing associated with them… it was unnerving. C4-621 hated it. 

This body had never been his, will never be his. The closest thing C4-621 had as his was STALKER, his AC painstakingly constructed from the parts he could afford on his frugal budget, trying to chase something familiar but out of reach. There were no tripwire traps lurking in STALKER, reminding him that he was a cuckoo bird huddled under the rotting corpse of another identity. STALKER was the truest manifestation of C4-621, whoever that was supposed to be…

…but even that was an imitation. STALKER, at the end of the day, was just a cheap knock-off, but it was all C4-621 could claim for himself. It was all he had, that was his. Not Asset 04, not C4-621, just him, the nameless stray dog Walter took pity on…

(“This Old Gen is fucking useless. If that dog handler doesn’t buy him, we’ll sell him to the Coral recycler.”)

He stretched out his arms underneath the shower’s spray, the water warm but not hot, his fingers splayed, and examined how the light and shadows and water played across his corpse-pale skin, wrapping around too-thin wrists and banding against his mannequin-like fingers. The effect was similar to sitting underneath the harsh glow of his AC’s emergency lights. Like-

He blinked.

Like…  

The warm water sliding down his arms gained a reddish tinge to it, pink, almost, forming rivulets that ran down to the crook of his elbows, gathering into small little puddles where the joint bent. It felt almost sticky - warm-sticky - and when C4-621 blinked again, the blood-warm water was crimson, same shade as arterial blood, which he remembered, because when he was choking and gurgling around his torn open throat, he remembered - he reached out, for- 

The blood had sort of ran down his arm in the same way. There’d been a lot of it. But his Core had also depressurised and the outside atmosphere had rushed in. Had it been raining? It must’ve been. Had it? C4-621 wasn’t sure why his mind was sticking over that irrelevant detail. He had blood running down his arms, wasn’t that more important?

…raven…

The smell was really strong too. Metal. Metal smell. Metal taste. Suddenly it was all C4-621 could focus on, his gaze fixed on the blood-warm water-blood running down his arms and how that overpowering taste clogged up the very back of his throat, making his lungs spasm beneath invisible, crushing jaws. He fought down the urge to heave, bracing a hand against his throat and (feeling sticky-wet between his fingers) quickly leaned against the stall to stay upright, his entire body flushing hot and cold in rapid, nauseating intervals. 

Raven, you’re fine. Your airway isn’t obstructed.

Ayre’s voice cut through the fog that had started to crowd into his vision, his pulse thunderously loud in his ears. He could faintly hear himself breathe - cough, and wheeze, and inhale - barely audible over the rush of the shower. Shower. Shower. Yes. Yes, he’s in the shower block- taking a shower - he is supposed to be taking a shower- this is just water-

That’s right, you’re in the Warren’s shower block. Just breathe slowly, Raven. Just like that. You’re okay.

C4-621 stifled a cough that felt like it wanted to snap his ribcage in half - and jerked when something rapped the stall loudly, the noise echoing weirdly.

“Hey, buddy?” The shower block’s acoustics made Rusty’s voice sound both very close yet very far away. “You okay? You’re not sounding too good.” 

“Mmmngh,” C4-621 managed to force out, an attempt at ‘I am fine please ignore me gasping and wheezing like a beached fish’ that very nearly sent him into a gagging fit when his throat spasmed painfully. He gritted his teeth and slowly sank down to the floor in a controlled collapse, water - water - cascading over him as a soothing, warm wave. 

Fuck, Rusty’s going to hear, he’s going to see him be a defective mess-

Don’t worry about Rusty, Raven. Just focus on breathing. Follow my rhythm: in… and hold… and out… and hold… and in…

C4-621 obeyed, closing his eyes and blocking out everything but Ayre’s voice, feeling his ribcage struggle to expand against the pressure trying to make them cave inwards. Every inhale made him want to gag, but Ayre told him that there was no obstruction - there was no blood, just water, harmless water - and that he was to breathe - so he forced himself, inhaling deep, even though it hurt, even though it made him feel sick, he breathed. 

The world drifted vaguely. The pressure eased. C4-621 slowly returned to reality cold and shivering, with a towel draped over his shoulders and the shower off. 

“Hey, you with me now?”

C4-621 sluggishly turned his head, his brain needing a moment to process the strange shapes his eyes were seeing. Rusty was squatting next to him, his damp hair curling slightly from the moisture and his blue eyes staring at him intently. He was… partly clothed, his coat thrown over his otherwise bare torso, and a pair of boxers the only thing keeping him decent. 

Meanwhile, C4-621 was naked except for the towel. He wasn’t sitting so much as he was slumped against the wall, a hand against his throat, feeling like someone had tossed him into a cement mixer for several hours. 

“Raven?” Rusty tried again, his tone very calm despite his tense posture. “You back?”

C4-621 nodded stiffly, pushing himself off the stall to try and sit up straight. He swayed a little, the towel slipping from his shoulder - and flinched when Rusty automatically reached out to steady it. Rusty politely ignored it, tucking the towel back around his shoulders and immediately taking his hands away. 

“It’s alright. Take your time,” Rusty murmured. “I’m just going to grab your clothes, okay? You’re probably freezing sitting on the floor like that.”

C4-621 watched with hooded eyes as Rusty stood up and walked towards the bench. There was a faint sense of strangeness about the whole thing, his emotions feeling thoroughly flattened, even though logically he knew he should be finding this situation really uncomfortable. Maybe it helped that Rusty looked kind of ridiculous in his coat and boxer combo. 

Rusty came back, squatting back down with C4-621’s clothes on his lap. There was a pause where they simply stared at each other, Rusty trying to figure out the logistics of dressing him without getting his clothes wet, and C4-621 slowly taking in new details that Rusty’s state of undress offered him. 

He had scars too. 

Specifically, a large, mottled burn scar dominated the majority of Rusty’s chest: ruddy pink and corpse-white, unevenly raised and stretched in parts. He didn’t even have a left nipple, though the right one was intact, a dusky colour that contrasted with the pale scar, but the strangest thing was, C4-621 could see another scar slicing through that old burn, one that traversed the length of Rusty’s sternum and stopped just short of his navel. 

It was an eerie mirror to C4-621’s vivisection scar. 

But… Rusty was a Gen Eight. Why would he have-

“Maybe we should just put the jacket on for now,” Rusty muttered, tugging at the clothes pile and pulling up the jacket, the wolf emblem snarling at C4-621 and hiding the unusual scar from view. “Here, just put this around your shoulders - leave the towel on.”

Groggily, C4-621 obeyed, managing not to flinch when Rusty’s hands gently draped the jacket over his shoulders and tugged it closed, though leaving it unzipped. It fended off some of the chill, but the tiled floor beneath him was frigid. C4-621 shivered. 

“Think you can stand?” Rusty asked, and held out a hand. “I’ll help you up.”

C4-621 stared at the extended hand, grasping the edge of the jacket to keep it closed. As the dazed fog receded, he was slowly realising the situation he was in. There was no doubt Rusty had seen. He would’ve witnessed C4-621 have a random fit over nothing at all, and combined with his earlier concern over his migraines… there was no way he’ll keep this to himself. He’ll tell Flatwell. He’ll tell him that C4-621 is defective, and they won’t use him anymore. He won’t be able to earn his keep. He’ll fall deeper into debt. They won’t be obligated to save Walter in exchange for his help-

Raven, stop. 

Ayre’s voice was firm, stemming the panic before it really gathered steam. 

Just focus on right now. You’re exhausted… so let Rusty help you to bed, at least. We can worry about the fallout with clearer heads in the morning. 

Right. Right…

C4-621 reached out slowly, and Rusty grasped his hand, practically engulfing it in his own. Carefully, like he was manhandling delicate china liable to shatter unexpectedly, Rusty helped him to his feet. C4-621’s legs held his weight, much to his intense relief. 

“There we go…” Rusty murmured, and still holding his hand, gently guided him to the bench. “You’re doing good, buddy.”

C4-621 felt a flicker of irritation at being patronised, but he let the emotion pass him by. He simply let Rusty manhandle him to the bench, and didn’t resist when he started to dress him: stepping into his boxers when told to, staying perfectly still when Rusty pulled them up to his hips, adjusting them to sit properly, before telling him to step into his flight suit, and pulling the fabric up along his body…

It felt familiar. After Walter had purchased him, C4-621 had to be dressed like this for a few weeks, his muscles atrophied to the point where he struggled to sit up properly under his own power. He had to be carried to the damn toilet, and while C4-621 had endured it passively, it was a position he didn’t want to be in again. It made him feel like some sort of soulless doll, to be manhandled and manipulated like that. 

But he said none of this.

“...was it because of your migraine?” Rusty asked quietly, bunching the flight suit around C4-621’s waist before tugging the jacket and towel from his shoulders. C4-621 fought back another shiver. “Did you faint or get a dizzy spell?”

It took C4-621 a moment to understand what he was asking. 

…it’s up to you on what you tell him, Raven…

He wasn’t sure. What would be worse? Saying he almost fainted from his migraine, or saying he had a panic attack because the fucking shower water triggered him randomly? He wasn’t sure. It was lose-lose either way. He was going to tell Flatwell about it and… 

So, C4-621 didn’t respond. He just stared absently into the middle distance, unresisting when Rusty tentatively manipulated his arms into his flight suit’s sleeves. In his periphery, he could see how uncomfortable Rusty looked - awkward, almost. 

“I’m just worried about you,” he muttered, punctuating his confession by loudly zipping up the flight suit, the noise echoing sharply in the shower block’s acoustics. “I walked in here seeing you just slumped on the floor and thought…”

Rusty didn’t finish the sentence, sighing heavily. He just draped the jacket over C4-621’s shoulders and turned away. 

“I’ll help you get your boots on.” 

C4-621 took the hint and stiffly sat down on the bench. As Rusty knelt down in front of him, pushing his feet into his boots and tying the laces up for him, C4-621 dug his hand into his flight suit pocket, taking out his communication device. 

But he didn’t type anything. He didn’t know what to say. He had a feeling he’d regret anything he’d type right now, and destroy the very little progress he and Rusty had made towards burying the hatchet between them. He was just tired. Exhausted. For once, C4-621 was looking forward to sleep, no matter what soul-crushing horrors were no doubt waiting for him in his dreams. 

A shower triggered him, of all things.

Ridiculous. 

Raven… sometimes you can’t predict these things. With how stressed you were, anything could have set you off. 

That was not reassuring at all. 

“Done.” Rusty gently patted the side of his left boot, and settled back on his haunches to give him a considering look. “Raven…”

He trailed off. C4-621 evaded his gaze to stare at his boots. He could see a blurry reflection on the steel caps. He wasn’t sure who’s it was. 

“...we’ll talk about this tomorrow,” Rusty finally said. “Just you and me. I won’t… bring this up with Uncle during our morning debrief, if you promise to be honest with me about what happened there. Alright?”

It was a very unexpected concession that immediately had C4-621 suspicious. He looked up from his boots, briefly catching Rusty’s eye - his expression was firm but honest. Rusty didn’t seem like he was lying, or trying to trick him, but C4-621 knew better than to take his word at face value. He was a proven liar, after all.

But he had no choice but to agree, so he nodded. 

“Okay, good,” Rusty said, looking relieved at his easy agreement. “Then let’s get you to bed. I think a good night’s sleep is just what the doctor ordered for both of us.” 

Rusty pushed himself to his feet, and held out a hand. C4-621 accepted it, letting Rusty pull him to his feet. But, Rusty seemed to pause once C4-621 was standing, his hold on his hand gentling but not releasing. C4-621 kept his gaze straight ahead, focused on that peculiar vivisection scar that cut through Rusty’s old burnmark. It was so incredibly precise and deliberate. What implants did New Gens need in their chest cavity…? 

“...oh.” Rusty abruptly released his hand and stepped back, zipping up his coat to block his bare chest from view. “Uh, yeah, let me get changed real quick. I’ll just be a minute.”

Rusty marched back into his own stall, stiff-backed, and closed the curtain behind him. C4-621 lowered his eyes to his hand, which was still tingling from where Rusty had held it. His hand had been very warm, pleasantly so - and it made the ambient chill bite harsher, now that that warmth was gone. 

C4-621 shoved his hands into his jacket pocket, and sighed harshly. 

He should’ve just gone straight to bed. 

Meanwhile, Rusty was once more ticking off a few more boxes on his ‘Concerning Things I Learn About Raven Against My Will’ bingo card. 

To say a few years had been scared off his lifespan when he had poked his head through the curtain to see Raven, half-collapsed on the floor gasping and wheezing, would be an understatement. Even now his pulse was still elevated, a paranoid worry gnawing at the back of his mind as he hastily got dressed. 

Did his throat injury cause issues with his windpipe or lungs? Did the heightened humidity in the shower block trigger some kind of asthma attack? Had he had a seizure and Rusty hadn’t noticed until it was too late? Did his migraine just make him dizzy and sick? Or was there some other, equally worrying and disturbing medical issue that Raven had kept quiet about for… multiple reasons? 

Rusty wasn’t stupid. He understood Raven’s secrecy in a way. Why would he willingly expose his weaknesses to those that had essentially kidnapped him and coerced him into productive compliance? If Rusty had been in his shoes, he'd also stay quiet about any debilitating medical issues - if only to be viewed as less of an inconvenience, and heighten his usefulness in the eyes of his captors. In this ruthless galaxy, every imperfection was viewed as intolerable to some.

He understood… but at the same time, it didn’t lessen his frustration. 

If Raven had been by himself… he’d been sitting directly under the shower, he could’ve drowned if he’d completely collapsed! It made Rusty want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, to demand why he didn’t tell him he’d been feeling unwell-

But that wouldn’t be helpful at all. 

So, with an experience honed to perfection within the Vespers, Rusty swallowed down his irritation and frustration, and projected a calm, placid persona. He put on his flight suit, zipped his coat back up again, tied up his boot’s shoelaces, and pulled back the curtain to see Raven standing exactly where he had left him.

At a glance, Raven looked exhausted. His face was almost grey, it was so pale, and his eyes were a dull brown with only the faintest of crimson glitter. His shoulders were heavily slumped, and his hands were buried deep into his pockets, his chin tucked beneath the collar of his jacket. Any lingering irritation Rusty had spluttered out.

“Okay, you ready?” Rusty asked, stepping past Raven to collect his toiletries for him: his damp towel, and unused shampoo and body wash.  

Raven nodded mutely and Rusty… hesitated. 

He had an idea, but he wasn’t sure how receptive to it Raven would be - or worse, Raven would go along with it but silently resent him, destroying what little progress he had made at trying to rebuild their… maybe not friendship, but comradery, at the very least. Raven, he had noticed, just went with the flow, quietly obeyed despite his own opinions, and Rusty was trying to be conscious of not assuming too many things about him, but…

…if any other Liberation Front member had been found half-collapsed in the shower, Uncle would’ve frogmarched them to the infirmary, no ifs or buts about it. But he remembered Raven’s brief hostility towards the idea of getting his implants looked at and knew that suggestion wouldn’t go down well, so the alternative was to basically… well… supervise him throughout the night, in case he had another… ‘attack’? Just until they spoke about this…

…

Only one thing for it then. 

“C’mon,” Rusty said. 

They left the shower block at a snail’s pace, Rusty matching Raven’s sluggishly slow stride. He didn’t offer to carry him, or try to encourage him to go any faster. Raven’s posture was tense, curled in, reminding Rusty of a little hedgehog whose quills hadn’t quite grown in yet, and Rusty had already manhandled him enough dressing him up. In retrospect, he might’ve overstepped there. Raven might’ve been able to do that himself…

He just hadn’t been thinking. When Rusty was agitated or worried, he liked having a direct hand in solving things - he hadn’t been able to help when Raven was struggling to breathe, but he could help him get dressed while he regained his bearings. He should’ve asked, though. Rusty mentally kicked himself.

But he tried not to linger on it. Slowly, carefully, they made their way through the Warrens’ twisty tunnels and hallways, until they entered the dormitory area. Raven’s eyes were heavy-lidded but sharp, sliding over the door numbers. If he recognised where they were heading, he didn’t indicate it - nor did he question it. 

They stopped in front of Rusty’s room.  

“You can take the bed,” Rusty said as he unlocked the door. “I’m probably not going to sleep for a while yet, anyways.” 

He pushed it open and stepped inside, half-turning to see Raven still standing in the corridor, giving him a piercing look. As always, he was hard to read, no indication of what was going through his mind visible in his eyes or expression. The longer the silence stretched, though, and the longer Raven didn’t move, Rusty realised he was waiting for an explanation. 

“Look…” He turned around completely. “If it was Uncle who saw you, then you’d already be in the infirmary. Since it’s harder to keep an eye on you if you’re sleeping underneath the bed, like you do in your room, I thought… you can sleep in here, and I’ll keep an eye on you to make sure you’re really fine.” 

Raven’s gaze lowered. 

“I should take you to the infirmary,” Rusty said, just to drive the point home. “But I’m compromising. So just… work with me here, okay?”

After a tense pause, Raven dug out his communication device, and asked: «You’ll just watch me sleep?»

Well, it sounded creepy when Raven put it like that. “Yeah. Nothing else.”

«That means you won’t sleep.»

“I can nap later, after our talk,” Rusty lied, and pushed his door open a little wider. “ORTUS was pretty banged up by those Ghost Mechs, so I won’t be deployed on a sortie for another day or two. That’ll give me plenty of time to catch up.”

Raven fiddled with his communication device, turning it over and over in his hands. After at least six rotations, he finally nodded minutely and stepped into his room, his gaze flickering about as if expecting it to look different from when they’d been in here only a few hours before. 

Rusty set down his towel and toiletries as Raven moved to stand awkwardly in the middle of the room. “You just make yourself comfortable. I’ll go grab your stuff from your room… your toothbrush and pyjamas, right?”

Raven nodded, and turned away to stare at Rusty’s corkboard of photographs. 

Rusty could admit he felt a little uneasy leaving Raven alone in his room, but he ignored it as it was a situation of his own making, really. He quickly left and practically jogged to Raven’s room, hurriedly inputting the code to the door and stepping inside as he flicked the lightswitch.

Thankfully, finding the items he came for was easy, since Raven stored everything on top of the bed in organised piles. Making a mental note to requisition a set of drawers for him or something, Rusty rummaged about until he found a set of thick, winter sweatpants and a sweater, and picked up a fresh flight suit too, its arm bearing the Liberation Front’s emblem.

It was a sight better than Walter’s…

Walter. 

Rusty couldn’t help but wonder- what did Walter do in these situations? Vesper intelligence had managed to dig up some info on him, had noticed that he paid out for a few RaD guys to do AC repairs and maintenance for Raven, but otherwise… there was no one else. It was just Raven and Walter. Did he ever sit by Raven’s bedside after one of his episodes, ensuring he didn’t have a relapse? Did he make sure he ate regularly? Did he check on him after every sortie, to ensure his migraines weren’t intolerable?

It didn’t mesh with the assumption Rusty already had of him: a callous handler who had killed many of his own hounds from dangerous, self-serving missions. Walter’s tone was always harsh and uncompromising on missions, and on shared sorties, Rusty had to bite his tongue on more than one occasion whenever Walter snapped at Raven “to focus on the job” whenever the merc took a few seconds too long to move onto the next objective. He came across as a demanding taskmaster, one that had somehow earned the undying, unflagging loyalty of the most dangerous mercenary on Rubicon. 

It was hard to imagine a man like that taking the time to care for Raven outside of his AC.

Rusty sighed and picked up Raven’s toothbrush and toothpaste, leaving the room. He could probably ask Raven, but he got the feeling that he’d give him a heavily biased and embellished view of things. Raven was a Walter fanatic. In his eyes, his handler could do no wrong, and never seemed bothered at being called a dog, being scolded for things outside of his control, for being snapped at for being too slow… Rusty just didn’t understand how you could be loyal to that.  

But Raven did say he had no memories before Walter… with nothing to compare it too… 

Time and experience may have Raven re-evaluating his relationship with Walter. It might let him realise how heavily imbalanced it was, how Raven had so much more freedom within the Liberation Front, even if he was its technical prisoner. He didn’t want to shove Raven into a position where he’d be forced to pick between Walter and the RLF, but… well. It might be inevitable, if they ever rescue Walter from The Factory. 

(Privately, he hoped they never would. Walter’s removal would neatly eradicate an inconvenience and a threat in one fell swoop. No Walter, no Overseer, no destruction of Rubicon… and Raven won’t be unfortunate collateral either. It was the perfect outcome. 

He just had to get Raven to realise that too.)

When Rusty returned to his room, Raven was seated on the edge of the bed and had taken his boots off. He was staring vacantly into space, but quickly refocused at hearing the door shut. Silently, Raven peered at him from beneath his eyelashes, his expression like stone. 

“Got your stuff,” Rusty said, setting the items down on the bed next to him. “And a clean flight suit too, for the morning. I’ll, uh, turn around, so you can get changed.” 

He did so, and there was a delayed pause before he heard the rustle of fabric. Rusty crossed his arms and canted his hip to the side slightly, letting his gaze rove around the small scuffs and cracks on the far wall - it sounded like Raven was moving very slowly. 

“So, I was thinking…” Rusty said. “After Uncle’s morning briefing, we’ll get breakfast and talk over food. I know I’m probably asking a lot from you, considering you… don’t trust me, but I told you I’ll have your back from now on, and I mean that outside of missions too.” 

Raven continued to get dressed. 

“...I know you said… you were scared of having to rely on me,” Rusty continued in a low murmur, finding it easier to be upfront when talking directly to a wall. He wasn’t sure he could do this if he’d been staring Raven right in the face. “I get that… and I don’t want to put you in a position where you feel like you have to, but… if you’ve got medical problems, then… that’s something we need to know, to work around.”

Rusty heard the dull thmp of clothes being dropped onto the floor, and he peeked over his shoulder before turning around fully. Raven was in his pyjamas now. 

“Hiding things is going to make things worse, in the long run,” Rusty finished. “You get that, don’t you?”

Raven looked away to stare at where Wolfy, Rusty’s childhood plush toy, sat guarding his pillow. Slowly, the merc reached out and picked up the plush, seating it on his lap as he played with its oversized paws, squishing the black pads with his thumbs. Rusty wasn’t quite sure how to feel about a relic of his childhood being at the mercy of Raven, but he felt it’d be childish getting defensive over a plush toy of all things, so let him fidget with it. 

“It’s not going to change our agreement,” Rusty said, trying to get some sort of acknowledgement from Raven. “I mean, you functioned fine under Walter, so clearly you just need… proper support and…”

Raven was openly tuning him out. Rusty sighed audibly and scrubbed a hand through his hair, feeling like this was some kind of divine punishment for something. Maybe for the hell he’d put Uncle through when he was a child. He knew he’d been a little… difficult, from time to time. 

“Right. We’ll talk about this tomorrow,” Rusty said, a promise and a threat. 

And, also, maybe he will discuss this with Uncle privately. He won’t give any details, but he might mention that Raven seemed to suffer from unpleasant side effects of being an Old Gen, what they should do… but Raven might get angry if he felt like Rusty went behind his back, but at the same time, him remaining stubbornly quiet could get him killed if he wasn’t careful. Drowning in the shower… what a ridiculous way for anyone to go! 

He’ll have to sleep on it - whatever sleep he can get, anyways. Rusty was already resigning himself to a long night on the floor and getting up with a sore back, and only dozing anyways, since he’d want to genuinely keep an eye on Raven, just in case. He might actually have to beg Uncle for a day off tomorrow to catch up on his sleep, even if it’d mean getting chewed out… 

The things he sacrificed for others. 

When they started prepping for sleep, the mood was uncomfortably tense and awkward. Raven bulldozed through it, though, climbing into Rusty’s bed with Wolfy held hostage, and yanked the duvet completely over his head, transforming into a shapeless lump. Rusty, using a spare duvet and pillow, and bulking up the floor with a bunch of clothing, ended up lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling, his hands clasped over his stomach.

In the darkness of his room, Rusty’s thoughts meandered, bouncing between his revelation of the Coral probably being sentient and its own functioning faction, Raven almost drowning in the shower, and the Ghost Mechs… and Uncle. 

i wonder if he’s back yet, Rusty thought tiredly, finally rolling onto his side to stare at his bed. In the gloom, he could just about see the faint outline of Raven underneath the covers. If he strained his hearing, he could hear his muffled breathing. i hope he’s not doing anything reckless…

He told himself Uncle was too smart to recklessly investigate a lead without coming back first and informing them, but deep down he knew that it was a very real possibility. Though Uncle was cautious with the lives of those he commanded, when it came to himself he would willingly fling himself in the jaws of mortal danger for any slight advantage over the Corps. It was enough to give everyone grey hairs…

…he’s definitely doing something stupid, Rusty thought with a muffled groan, i can sense it.

But so long as he was back by morning, then it was fine. Rusty can chew him out for being reckless, and Uncle can chew him out for not sleeping properly. It’d be a nice, refreshing bit of normality, actually, since that’s how things had been between them, before he went to Earth and joined the Vespers. 

And besides, no matter how reckless Uncle could be, he always came back.

Chapter Text

Rusty’s bed was actually very comfortable. 

More comfortable than the little nest C4-621 had made for himself underneath his own bed back in his cell, the mattress softer than the unyielding concrete floor, yet still having enough firmness that it didn’t feel like C4-621 was sinking into it. The duvet was very thick and heavy too, and the pillows had just the right amount of support. As much as C4-621 didn’t want to admit it, Rusty’s bed was the best bed he had ever laid in, and he could say that with absolute confidence as he only really recalled sleeping in three different beds in his remembered lifetime. 

His first bed was when he’d been Asset 04, fresh from the infirmary and still tasting blood with every painful swallow. It had been a perfectly functional, albeit basic, single-man bed, with a mattress that was just a little too firm and a blanket that was a little too thin. The room it occupied had looked bare and spartan at a glance, but when C4-621 had gone digging, he’d found razor blades tucked inside various nooks and crannies, and there had been at least four different locks on the bedroom door and one on the inside of his singular wardrobe. 

C4-621 had slept in that bed only once. It was functional, but the nauseous anxiety and discomfort it had triggered in him when lying down on it had been too much. Even though his memories had been lost, they had still left behind indelible smears that left visceral echoes in his subconsciousness. The bed had been functional but it was a horrible awful bed and he didn’t want to be in it because it made him feel sick and frightened, so C4-621 spent the rest of his time as Asset 04 sleeping on the floor instead. 

His second bed was after he had been reborn as C4-621, fresh from Lorry’s Rear and groggy from decades in cold storage. It had been nothing more than a field cot, with a rickety leg that tilted you at a slight angle if you rolled over too far to the left. The blankets had been thicker - duvets, really, and the pillow plush enough to actually support his head. Of course, the bed had only been a temporary thing, as C4-617 promised-

…

…

…

…

…

Well, anyway, that had been his second bed. 

The third bed had been the best of the lot (and, vaguely, C4-621 recalled a phrase: “third time’s the charm!”), which had been the one set up at their main garage on Rubicon. 

Walter had stuffed a mattress underneath it, for whenever C4-621’s migraines got too bad and he had to crawl into somewhere very dark and quiet to escape the agony that light and noise brought him. The mattress had been thin, both on and under the bed, and he had to triple up on blankets to evade the permanent chill that seeped through the walls, but that bed and the room it had been in was solely his from the very beginning. Walter allowed it to be his. C4-621 knew why things were the way they were in there, and had a direct hand in changing or removing things as he pleased. 

In retrospect, maybe that bed was the best, even if its mattress and duvet wasn’t as good as Rusty’s…

C4-621 rolled over where he’d been curled up underneath Rusty’s thick duvet, pulling the stuffed toy he’d captured closer to him. But, maybe that’s why this bed felt so nice too, he mused. Rusty’s room was very personalised… intimate, almost, with how much of Rusty’s private life was exposed here. Those photographs, this toy… 

Like most Gen Fours, C4-621’s night vision was fairly good. Even underneath the near pitch-black darkness of his duvet, he could see the outline of the stuffed toy he held in his hands, though everything was in varying shades of grey. He studied it closely.

The stuffed toy was of some sort of wolf, the proportions too childish and exaggerated to really pin down its specific breed. The fur was thick and plush, though C4-621 could feel it worn down in some parts, bald patches where the stitching could be easily felt against his fingertips. It probably had two eyes at some point, but only one remained now: a flat disc of black where the painted iris had long been scratched away. The missing eye was just a knot of stitching where the plastic disc had broken off, giving the wolf a beaten-up look about it. 

C4-621 idly ran his fingers through the toy’s thick ruff. It looked like it’d been through a few wars, but it wasn’t violence that had done this, but constant and earnestly given love. What little C4-621 had been exposed to after being cracked out of cold storage showed him that love could be as bruising and damaging as simple hostility and violence - more so, in fact. Love had a way of finding that gap between your ribs to knife right into your guts. It always found your soft spots. 

It always fucking hurt. 

He curled his fingers into the toy’s ruff, staring at its asymmetrical face. Despite himself, he couldn’t help but think of Walter: where was he now (the Factory), how he was doing (badly) and what he was doing (getting tortured, probably). Couldn’t help but feel a gnawing, twisty feeling of guilt at lying here, in Rusty’s very nice bed, warm and comfortable and well-cared for, while Walter…

He owed him so much. Walter saved him. Walter bought him because no one else would. Walter cared for him until he could walk under his own power and feed himself. Walter gave him a reason to live. Walter introduced him to the concept of this choice is yours and you can pick the mission. Walter promised him eventual freedom - a life that he could call his own, once they finished their job, and had been slowly handing him the tools to prepare for that promised eventuality. 

C4-621 felt his thoughts linger there, guilt and something undefinable churning in his stomach. Any pragmatic mercenary would know to cut their losses there. He knew Walter would tell him that: focus on the job, 621. The Factory was an impossible nut to crack without prep, and that prep would take time, time where Walter would be re-educated or mutilated into something useful. Pragmatism dictated: cut your losses. Focus on the job. Reach the Coral Convergence.

Reach the Convergence.

The last, unfulfilled objective from both Walter and Ayre, who he owed so much to and thus had to serve with every fibre of his being. It was how this galaxy worked, wasn’t it? They owned him, body and soul, and now maybe heart too. It was a little more than contractual obligation at this point - maybe this was how love functioned? C4-621 wasn’t sure, he thought himself incapable of love before…

…focus on the job… but he couldn’t just leave Walter to his fate… but to pursue him may mean he’d never fulfil his failed objective… Ayre needed to reach the Convergence… but he also promised to help the Liberation Front in exchange for food and shelter… but he had to focus on the job… but can he do that while helping the Rubiconians and Ayre… can he save Walter and still reach the Convergence… and if he reached the Convergence… 

…

…wouldn’t that be the end to his connection with Walter and Ayre? She would go home to her family, and Walter would conclude the mission and set C4-621 free. He’ll end up with nothing, in the end. Wouldn’t it be in his best interests, then, to never complete the mission? But he had to. But if he did, he lost everything. But it’d be selfish to prioritise his own wants and interests. They were irrelevant to the situation. He wasn’t supposed to want things.

How did people do this? If this was how love was meant to be, then he didn’t like it. It was ripping him into too many directions-

Raven.

Ayre’s voice was hushed, a barely audible whisper that caressed his conscious thoughts. He rolled over onto his side, holding the wolf toy close to his chest and giving it an experimental squeeze. The toy’s snout nudged against his jaw. 

…you should be resting.

It felt like Ayre had wanted to say something else, her voice almost melancholy. C4-621 buried his nose into the wolf toy’s fur, closing his eyes and seeing the strange flickers of scarlet stars behind his lids that he’d always seen ever since opening his eyes for the very first time in this cold galaxy. They glowed brighter when Ayre spoke to him. 

…

A quiet sigh, and he felt Ayre sort of shift in the back of his head, though that wasn’t really the right word for the sensation he felt. Ayre didn’t have a physical presence and she didn’t actually live in his head, taking up actual space in his cranium, but his nervous system struggled to fully translate the signals their connection sent between them as anything but physical sensations. 

He could tell when he had Ayre’s complete focus, because it felt like he had a blanket draped over his shoulders and a comforting warmth thrum along his nerves, and he could tell when she was carefully flipping through information stored in his implicit and explicit memory centres, because it was a very ticklish sensation like a feather was stroking along his brainstem. 

This time, Ayre’s presence felt fuzzy, like the wolf fur against his cheek. Warmer, though.

…you won’t end up with nothing, if you reach the Convergence.

Ah. Ayre had overheard his internal dilemma. He felt a cramp of guilt knife him in his gut, aware that she might be angry at him contemplating reneging their promise for his own selfish desires. Of course, he’d never intentionally fail the mission, of course he’d do as he was ordered to, of course he’ll reach the Convergence, as quickly as he can and-

I’m not angry, Raven. I’m… I’m sorry that I failed to take your feelings into account. That wasn’t my intention. 

Yet, Ayre’s tone was a little strange. He couldn’t quite pin it down, how it teetered between subdued yet warm. Though they were connected intimately, right down to their figurative hearts, Ayre experienced a wealth of emotion in a range that dwarfed C4-621’s own capacity. He always struggled to parse them.

When we first met, you were very suspicious and wary of me… scared, even. So, I’d wanted to reassure you that our Contact wouldn’t be permanent. That this wasn’t something you were forced to do. I didn’t like that I caused you anxiety. 

C4-621 remembered. In the days after they’d made Contact, he had been extremely worried about this strange, disembodied voice in his head, and had tried his best to block it out and bar it from his mind until Ayre slowly managed to present herself as an asset, rather than a threat. While he acknowledged his initial treatment of her had been harsh and downright ugly, he didn’t regret it as such. He felt like it was a reasonable reaction to feeling a stranger invade the one place he thought he had absolute control over: his own mind. 

I don’t fault you for your initial response either. In retrospect, I’d been a little rude, just barging into your mind like that. I’d been alone for so long that I was happy someone could finally hear me, and didn’t think my actions through… 

But, still… that’s no excuse for scaring you.

It was fine. He’d already forgiven her for it. 

And I’m glad. But… I suppose I never reassessed your wants from when we first met. Humans prize individuality and privacy, so while I thought we could still talk after I returned to my family, I thought you wouldn’t want me to stay…

Would she stay, if he asked?

…it’s strange. I thought all I wanted was to return to my family. It’s an overpowering desire, but when I think about leaving you to achieve that, I feel conflicted.

I’m not sure. 

C4-621 was glad it wasn’t just him feeling uncertain about this. A brief silence lapsed between them, heavy and thoughtful, Ayre feeling like a tiny ball of static as she chewed over her next words. The scarlet Coral stars behind C4-621’s closed eyelids sparkled that little bit brighter. 

…I think… I think you should reconsider on what you really want, Raven.

On what he wanted?

Your desire to reach the Coral Convergence is because it’s something myself and Walter want, even if it’s for different reasons. But what is it you want?

…to fulfil his mis-

No. Pretend there’s no mission. There’s just you. What do you want?

…

He didn’t know. 

His wants and desires were irrelevant. Even that life Walter promised him, C4-621 hadn’t really thought too deeply about it, because wouldn’t it be the same as now? He’d have a handler, and he’d complete missions, except he wouldn’t have to obsess over paying off his debt. He could probably… choose which planet to conduct his business on, maybe? Or… or what to spend his money on? (What did you spend money on that wasn’t AC repairs, ammunition and food, though?)

He didn’t know. He didn’t know how to be anything but the wetware of a war machine. He didn’t know how to want anything else.

That’s why I think you should take your time with the Liberation Front. They’ll be able to teach you what freedom really means.

But what about-

You can’t do anything for Walter right now, and I’m fine with waiting. Besides…

…

…we may’ve only known each other for a few short months, but in that time you’ve become someone very dear to me. I want to protect you, as much as I can, and to support you - unconditionally. Whether you succeed in bringing me to the Convergence or not, it doesn’t change my feelings towards you.

…feelings?

Yes. I love you, as a most precious friend. 

I love you. 

I love you. 

I love you. 

I love you.

Ayre said the words so fearlessly, her earnestness shining through like a guiding star lighting up the midnight sky. It left C4-621 feeling… some kind of way. Speechless, but in thought, those three words knocking about his skull like a pinball, feeling heavier and heavier with each rebound.

It was one thing to ponder over whether he felt love, or if it was just fanatic loyalty taken to its logical extreme, quite another to hear someone say those words, sincerely, to his face. A part of him wanted to instinctively reject the words, because he can’t reciprocate like how Ayre would want him to. He was unable to recognise the emotion in himself. He didn’t know how it was supposed to feel like. Could he even feel it? Could he even say those words back-

It’s okay. You don’t need to reciprocate. I just want you to be happy…

…so let’s leave it at that, for now. You should try to get some sleep. 

C4-621 wasn’t sure how he was supposed to sleep after all that…

But no sooner had he thought this did a wave of exhaustion wash over him. It wasn’t enough to pull him into a deep sleep - he automatically shook it off without thinking - but it did remind him of how obscenely long this day had been, and how much had happened within its few hours. He didn’t even know where to start in processing it. 

Because he needed to process it now, because otherwise it’d follow him into his dreams, and he didn’t want to think what demented nightmares his mind would mash together from all those unresolved thoughts and feelings. He felt the possibility loom over him like a bear trap dangling over his head, just waiting for the right trigger to crush his bruised psyche between uncompromising steel jaws. 

He was too tired. 

To deal…

…with that.

…Raven. Do you remember, when I said I’d try to figure out a way for you to sleep peacefully?

C4-621 nodded minutely. 

Well, I might have something that may work… if you’re willing to try.

He noted Ayre’s word choice: might and may. Of course, it was best to manage his expectations and keep them low, but he still felt a faint spark of hope. Because if this worked… well, he may actually get a full night of rest for once in his life. 

The only issue was…

C4-621 lifted his duvet slightly, shivering at the cold air immediately filling in the warm pocket he’d made. In the near pitch-black darkness of the room, lit up only by the thin ray of light seeping from beneath the door, he could just about make out Rusty on his makeshift bed on the floor,curled up tight under his blanket into the tiniest little ball possible.

It was actually quite impressive, considering how tall and broad-shouldered he normally was. C4-621 studied him closely, his pupils dilating to draw in as much light as possible as Rusty’s features became a little more defined in the dark: his eyes were closed, and his expression completely relaxed. His breathing was slow and steady and deep, and on occasion he’d mumble something incoherent and indistinct. 

He was completely dead to the world. 

C4-621 tested that conclusion, though. Carefully, he thumped his loosely clenched fist against the bed frame, the dull ‘thd thd’ sounding uncomfortably loud in the small room. Rusty didn’t even twitch. 

He did say that he was tired…

But it meant Rusty wouldn’t interfere in case Ayre’s attempt to help him sleep went… pear-shaped. He ignored the fact that Rusty was supposed to keep an eye on him because he agreed with Ayre: Rusty had been exhausted, and maybe him getting several solid hours of sleep would make him less confusing and contradictory. It wouldn’t surprise him if a lot of Rusty’s irrational moments were driven by a lack of sleep…

C4-621 made himself comfortable, snuggling underneath the duvet and clutching the wolf toy close to his chest. It was odd, but he found it soothing to hold the inanimate object in his arms. Maybe it was simulating the comfort gained from a hug? Probably. C4-621 was fascinated that it worked on him, though. He didn’t think Asset 04 was ever hugged as a child, growing up in a laboratory environment and all, so he shouldn’t associate the foreign gesture with comfort in the first place.  

Once he was settled, Ayre launched into something resembling nervous chatter. 

Before we begin, I feel like I should warn you… it shouldn’t hurt or cause any dramatic effects, but human grey matter is difficult to predict on an individual basis due to its plasticity. Combined with your unique implants and existing brain damage, there may be unexpected reactions I can’t predict…

Well, was there a risk he’d have a stroke or die?

…a very very miniscule one, but you’re constantly at risk for that in general due to being an augmented human. Technically speaking, this won’t boost that risk beyond a few fractional percentiles.

Well, that was good enough for him. 

Okay. Just close your eyes…

C4-621 obeyed, and he felt Ayre sort of shift in the back of his head, followed by an uncomfortably ticklish feeling all along the inside of his skull and down his spine. His fingers twitched and his left leg jerked like he’d been shocked, prompting a discomforted noise from the back of his throat. 

Sorry, sorry, I overcompensated. Give me a moment… right, okay. If I do this… and try not to accidentally close off this nerve receptor… that’s important, I think… ah, yes, that causes muscle paralysis in sleep, so that’s definitely important…

C4-621 should probably feel worried, having someone intimately rummage around in his brain and manipulate his mind and implants, all while muttering hmm that’s important i think, or i don’t think that’s needed, but this was Ayre. He knew she’d never do anything that would intentionally hurt or kill him, and he doubted she would’ve offered this if the chances of it failing was higher than success. 

…he hoped. 

Alright, I’m ready. Now, the first few minutes might be extremely disorientating, but I promise any unpleasant side effects will be temporary. With any luck, this’ll give you a deep, peaceful and dreamless sleep. 

Are you ready?

Ready.

Alright. On the count of three. 

Three…

…two… 

…one.

When Rusty woke up, it was because he’d been snoring so loud he’d actually startled himself awake. 

In the groggily confused and half-asleep moments afterwards, he tried to figure out where he was and why his mouth felt so dry. His back hurt, his neck had a really bad crick in it, and he was, for some reason, halfway under his bed, having migrated across the floor throughout the night somehow. 

The floor… oh, right. 

Clarity dawned, and he stiffly crawled out from under the bed and sat up properly, digging his fingers into the back of his neck to alleviate the stiff muscles there. The large lump under the bed’s duvet told him Raven was still there, but he reached out and very carefully lifted the covers to check on him, just to make sure he hadn’t suffocated during the night. 

He was confronted with Raven curled up around Wolfy, his face half-buried into the toy’s fur. His eyes were closed, dark lashes gently kissing his pale cheeks, with pale green and yellow splotches already beginning to soften the edges of his black eye. More importantly, he was still breathing, and if Rusty strained his ears, he could hear him letting out quiet, snuffling snores…

…like a kitten. 

Rusty smiled despite himself, and very gently lowered the duvet. 

Assured that Raven had survived the night, Rusty gathered up the blankets and clothes that had ended up being dragged along the floor during his unconscious migration and sat back down on his makeshift bed with a sigh. 

He felt a little bad for not maintaining his vigil despite his best attempts to stay awake, but it seemed exhaustion had won out in the end. He didn’t even recall dreaming. That never happened. It was actually quite unnerving…

must’ve really needed it, he thought grimly as he pulled his pyjama shirt off over his head, ignoring the chill against his bare skin. He glanced over at the bed, and seeing Raven still deeply asleep, decided to continue with his usual morning routine before rousing him for breakfast. 

The scars that overtook most of his torso weren’t just for show, sadly. He gently ran his fingers over the blotchy and asymmetrical scarring, feeling the bumps and grooves where the skin had healed unevenly. In some parts, where his nipple used to be, it felt so sensitive it was almost painful, but in others, like over his shoulder, there was a distinct lack of sensation. After growing up with them, he knew off by heart where the sensitive and dead areas were. 

He also knew that he had to try his best to keep the scarring supple, too. 

Rusty slowly rolled his shoulder, feeling the scar tissue pull uncomfortably. His range of motion was naturally reduced on that shoulder, but it’d be hell of a lot less if he didn’t do these exercises. Every morning, without fail - duties allowing - he would spend at least half an hour slowly limbering up his joints and muscles where the scar tissue hindered movement, massaging where it was most stiff, and finishing off by applying moisturiser to alleviate the worst of the subtle itching and sensitivity on certain hotspots. 

Ziyi used to joke about it being his morning beauty routine, which Rusty always laughed off but couldn’t really refute. He didn’t really have to go to these lengths to live with these scars, but at the same time he hated the idea of just… leaving them alone. He couldn’t tolerate his range of motion being impacted by these scars - what if it affected his piloting ability? And if he left them alone, the scars might get uglier and more nasty looking, and while Rusty knew he was the only one who saw them these days, he still wanted to look himself in the mirror without cringing. 

As he thought that, he couldn’t help but recall last night: Raven’s dazed staring, fixed on his chest with a faint furrow between his brow. He hadn’t looked horrified or disgusted, but he’d seemed… unsettled.

Rusty shook off the creeping sense of self-consciousness, scoffing at himself. Raven had just come down from what looked like a pretty severe panic attack; he likely had no idea he’d been staring at Rusty, or processed what he’d been looking at. It wasn’t as if Raven could judge, considering his body was…

His expression sobered.

Rusty hadn’t said anything at the time, considering the situation and that his top priority had been making sure Raven was fine and not at risk of having some kind of… seizure or whatever, but during this quiet moment, as he slowly worked through his morning stretches, he couldn’t help but think about what he had seen. 

Raven was skinny, that had been his first observation. Not in an underfed way, but in a way that implied a heavily sedentary lifestyle in how lacking in muscle tone he was, with slim, bird-like wrists and legs as slender as a doe’s, all sharp edges and even sharper points. His skin was so pale Rusty would believe it if he’d been told Raven had never seen the light of day in his life, but when he touched him, his skin had been feverishly warm. 

But more than that… the scars: thin, precise surgical scars over every single joint, making him seem more like a mannequin rather than human, and his back-

Rusty knew that Gen Fours had more ‘work’ done on them than the previous two Gens. Some had their entire spinal column replaced, though he had no idea how that worked without paralysing most of them, and others large parts of their skulls. Raven’s back, however, hadn’t been littered with neat, surgical scars running parallel to his spine - or, rather, those scars had been there, but they’d been almost completely concealed beneath the uglier, thicker and more haphazard scars that criss-crossed his entire back in a pattern that had no rhyme or reason. 

…because they weren’t surgical scars. In fact, Rusty knew exactly how one got those types of scars, but he refused to let himself dwell on it, because if he dedicated even one second of thought towards it, he’d see red. 

Did Raven even know he had those? If he’d lost his memory, and supposing Walter hadn’t given them to him… he probably didn’t. Rusty had no idea if he should even bring it up to him. Or just pretend he saw nothing. 

He sighed quietly, lowering his arm from its stretch. 

Well, at least the seriousness of the moment had let him skip over the embarrassment of seeing Raven naked. Rusty could admit it, he was pretty bashful when it came to such things, but he knew how to prioritise. 

Except. 

…except, he didn’t have to prioritise right now, and since his mind had neatly processed and categorised Raven’s naked body in a clinical way, it could now categorise it less clinically…

“...he’s bigger than I thought he’d be,” he muttered to himself as his cheeks pinked slightly. 

Not that he had, uh, ogled Raven or anything. It was just a detached observation, dashed with some mild surprise at having his expectations subverted - not that he had any kind of expectations on Raven’s dick of all things, because that would be weird, what with their complicated relationship of comrades turned enemies and back to reluctant comrades. It was just a normal thing, for guys to take a peek and note it. Not that he did that with any of the Vespers, of course, but that was different, since they’d been coworkers and, also, who’d want to look at Snail’s dick? Certainly not him.

Rusty shuddered at the mental image of ever catching Snail naked, a fate he had thankfully avoided despite the cramped squad lockers for the Vesper AC pilots. The same couldn’t be said for the rest of the Vespers, sadly…

Dispelling such unhelpful thoughts before he wandered down a mental route he really didn’t want to revisit, Rusty kneaded his chest with the heel of his palm, trying to loosen off the taut scar tissue. It prickled unevenly, and some parts even felt a little dry. Well, he supposed he could spare some time to apply moisturiser before getting breakfast.

He glanced over at the bed, if only to gauge if Raven was any closer to waking up - and immediately locked gazes with Coral-red eyes. 

“Oh-” Rusty cut off the quietly startled noise, his arms automatically coming up to cross over his chest before he stopped himself at the last second. “Uh, mornin’, buddy. How’re you feeling?”

Raven answered by giving him a very slow and drowsy blink, his gaze a little unfocused as he groggily stirred from half-awake to actually awake. In the dim light of Rusty’s room, his irises looked like solid discs of scarlet, so vivid they almost looked like they were glowing, the faintest twinkle of active Coral flickering along the edges, ‘blink-and-you’ll-miss-it’ glints of light, like spotting a shooting star in the overhead night’s sky. 

It was surreal, in a hypnotic kind of way, and not for the first time Rusty found himself staring intently into those eyes. They were otherworldly, in a way. He’d never met another human with such unique eyes, and he was including O’Keeffe and Flatwell in that, the only other Old Gens he knew. Their eyes carried the characteristic scarlet limbal ring, but nothing like this…

He wasn’t sure how long they’d stayed like that, silently staring at one another, but the odd moment was broken when Raven’s expression suddenly scrunched up - and he buried his face into Wolfy’s fur to smother a yawn. 

“Ah- you’re still tired?” Rusty half-laughed, giving himself a bit of a mental shake now that the spell was broken. God, he was lucky Raven was socially incompetent, otherwise he had no idea how to explain staring at him silently like a creep. “It’s still early morning, I think, so you can doze off for another hour or two if you need it.”

“Mngh,” Raven replied, a rough, husky noise that sounded like a mangled growl. Clumsily, he sat up, his movements oddly jerky and stiff, and rested Wolfy in his lap. His hair was sticking up wildly on one side where his head had been resting on the pillow, and his eyes were now a dull reddish brown, no sign of those twinkling Coral-stars. Maybe he’d imagined them…

Rusty kept an eye on him in his peripheral as he grabbed his pyjama shirt and tugged it back on, concealing his burn scars underneath. He hadn’t finished his routine but… he felt self-conscious doing it in front of Raven. It was fine, he can complete it later, or something. 

“But if that’s enough for you, we can go get breakfast after cleaning up,” Rusty continued, climbing to his feet. He started gathering up the blankets, clothes and pillows that had made up his makeshift bed off the floor. “You didn’t really get to finish your shower last night, did you? Uncle’s probably not expecting us until mid-morning, so you can take your time, whatever you decide.” 

He felt the weight of Raven’s stare lock onto his back, but Rusty ignored it, setting down the items in the corner of the room to deal with later. 

“But I’m going to go to breakfast in a minute, if you want to eat first.” Rusty straightened up and started to turn around. “You’re probably- oh.” 

Raven was carefully climbing out of bed, and Rusty emphasised carefully because there was a distinct unsteadiness to his movements. Rusty scrutinised him closely, but Raven didn’t seem dizzy; if anything, he looked slightly pained, his usually blank expression pulled into one of faint discomfort. 

“...are you okay?” he asked, keeping his tone neutral. “Is this a continuation of last night’s symptoms?”

Raven shook his head in response - at least he was quick to process questions, that was a good sign - and looked about himself, clearly hunting for something- oh, his communication device. 

Rusty hurriedly moved over to where he’d set it on the dresser last night, after almost stepping on the damn thing when Raven had huffily gone to bed and forgotten about it, and handed it over to the merc. Raven immediately started typing with slow, yet precise, taps. 

«My joints hurt,» he said with surprising honesty. 

“Your joints…?” Rusty glanced downwards at Raven’s hands, where the thin, pale pink surgical scars wrapped around his finger joints. “Is it really bad?”

«Typical. It’ll ease off when I start moving around.»

“Okay…” Rusty said slowly, unsure whether to trust him, considering how squirrelly Raven had been so far about his health. He chewed over his next words before swallowing them down, deciding to give Raven the benefit of the doubt. Squirrelly or not, he had been somewhat honest about his difficulties, even if it had required a bit of prodding from Rusty’s end - and even more prodding later on, when they circled back to whatever the hell happened last night… but that was for later, after they had breakfast at least. 

“So, breakfast or shower?” Rusty asked casually.

Raven visibly mulled it over, his gaze sliding around the small room with a faint furrow between his brow. As he thought, Rusty started picking out his clothes for the day - a flight suit, obviously - and resigned himself to getting changed in front of Raven regardless. He decided to get it over with quickly, and stripped out of his pyjamas and into the flight suit. 

It was this movement that drew Raven’s attention back to him. The mercenary glanced at him fleetingly, his gaze lowering to the floor, only to drift back up when Rusty pulled off his pyjama shirt, focusing intently on his chest with that odd expression - troubled, almost, if such a thing could be applied to Raven’s perpetual stone mask. 

Rusty considered ignoring him. It wouldn’t be the first time the scars had drawn a shocked stare, but he could admit something about it rubbed him weirdly. Raven didn’t look visibly disgusted or judgemental, but the intensity behind his stare made Rusty feel like a butterfly pinned down to a corkboard: unpleasantly exposed. 

So, he decided to meet Raven’s unabashed curiosity head on: “See something interesting?”

A normal, socially adjusted person would take the hint. Raven didn’t. He cocked his head to the side and pointed right at Rusty’s chest. 

“...my scars?” Rusty asked, trying to strike a neutral tone and sounded defensive instead. “They’re burn marks, obviously.” 

Raven shook his head, and took a step forward. Rusty tensed despite himself, tightly gripping the fabric of his pyjama shirt as Raven pointed again, at his chest, but made a straight line downwards as he did so, right over Rusty’s- oh. 

He looked down, seeing what Raven was pointing at. Not the burn scar, but the other scar, the one barely visible amongst the mess that otherwise dominated his chest, with how thin and surgically precise it was. 

“This?” He gently touched the scar, following it where it travelled over his sternum and stopped two inches above his navel. It prickled uncomfortably, and Rusty found himself frowning, because: “It’s my augmentation surgery scar… same as yours.”

Well, not exactly the same, as Raven’s seemed a little more extensive, being a ‘Y’ shape rather than a single line like Rusty’s, but the premise was the same. It was a little baffling that Raven had found that remarkable, rather than the ugly burns that marred Rusty’s skin. 

Slowly, Raven responded: «Not exactly the same.» 

“Well, similar enough.” Rusty lowered his hand and turned away, keeping his back to the mercenary as he continued getting changed. “Amazed you thought that more interesting than the burns, though.”

«They’re just normal scars. I don’t care about them.» 

Combined with the robotic voice of the text-to-voice, Raven’s statement sounded coldly dismissive. Rusty preferred that over pity or false sympathy though, so just grunted in response, zipping up his flight suit and adjusting it to sit more comfortably over his frame. 

«What generation are you?» 

Rusty paused and looked over his shoulder. Raven was staring at him with such intensity it was like he was trying to excise him with his gaze alone, his eyes back to that vividly bright Coral-red as he scrutinised Rusty closely. 

“...eight. I’ve told you before,” he replied warily. 

«You’re lying.» 

Blunt. Rusty rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a half-hearted laugh without really thinking about it. 

“Wow, you don’t pull your punches, do you, buddy?” he asked, flashing him an automatic smile that was more V.IV than Rusty. “But, y’know, if you want to get honest answers from me, you’ll need to be honest in return…” 

Raven pursed his lips.

“...I’ll tell you what generation I really am, if you promise to be completely honest about what’s up with you,” Rusty continued mildly, his tone bordering on sweet. It was anything but. “We’ve both agreed that lying and hiding things hasn’t done much for our relationship, right?”

«How do we know if we’re being honest with each other?» 

“That’s where a bit of trust comes in, I guess,” Rusty said, acknowledging that he was going to take everything Raven said with a bucket of salt, and vice versa. “Baby steps, and all that.”

Raven turned away from him, not bothering to hide his frown. After a long pause where he glowered into the middle distance, he just dropped the conversation entirely, pottering about to get changed himself. Obligingly, Rusty turned around to give him privacy. 

“I meant it when I said I’ll have your back from now on, buddy,” Rusty said to the wall. “Even if that’s having your back against yourself. Ignoring health problems and even hiding them will just come back to bite you in the ass, later down the line.”

No response, except the rustle of fabric. 

“Like, if I hadn’t been in the shower with you…? You could’ve drowned last night, Raven. Not exactly a dignified way for a mercenary of your skill to go.” 

No response. 

“And…” Rusty paused, before deciding to go with a ruthlessly low blow: “You won’t be able to save Walter, if you continue on like this. Either because you run yourself into the ground, or because Uncle benches you for your own health. You get that, right?”

The sound of rustling fabric stopped, long enough that Rusty actually half-turned. Raven was half-dressed, his flight suit pulled up around his hips with one arm slipped into its sleeve, but he had frozen like that, his expression indecipherable as he stared at the floor. The low blow had really hit him where it hurt. 

“...right?” Rusty asked, gentling his voice. “Buddy?”

Raven’s expression twitched, but whatever emotion had shown through the cracks happened too quickly for Rusty to parse it. He turned away completely, and roughly pulled his flight suit all the way on and zipped it up - but not before Rusty got another glimpse of his back, with its ugly, thick scars that looked like something had flayed off half the skin there, once upon a time. 

Rusty grimaced, and lifted his gaze higher, to where he could see that ‘synchro-port’ nestled in the base of Raven’s skull. He thought back to STALKER’s cockpit, with that cerebellum spike resting next to the seat’s headrest, how long and cruel it looked, and how a part of him cringed at imagining that stabbing directly into his brain. 

Raven’s pain threshold must be insane… who knew how much damage his body was struggling from and Raven just didn’t know, too used to tuning out the agony… 

“Raven…” Rusty murmured, still keeping his tone gentle. “I-”

‘KNOCK KNOCK!’

Both of them jumped at the loud, hearty knocks that thundered against his door - followed by a distinctly familiar voice: 

“Oi! Rusty!” Ziyi’s muffled voice barked through the door. “It’s time to get up! Rivers sent me to get you - something about Uncle!”

Had he decided to do the morning brief early after all? A little surprised, but not seeing it as overly out of character, Rusty walked over to his door and opened it, just as Ziyi started up a fresh round of knocking. He ended up with her fist hitting his chest with enough force to make him wheeze. 

“Oh fuck- a little warning next time!” Ziyi harrumphed, unrepentant at basically punching Rusty in the chest. “Also how much iron have you been pumping? Felt like I punched a pillow.”

“Thanks…” Rusty grunted a bit breathlessly, rubbing his smarting chest. “I think.”

“Well, whatever. You need to go see Rivers,” Ziyi drawled. “He sent me to get you and Raven, wherever that dog’s wandered off to. He wasn’t in his room - fucker doesn’t even sleep on his bed. What a weirdo, right?”

“Uh,” Rusty glanced over his shoulder. Raven stared back dully. 

“He’s got his blankets shoved underneath it, like some kinda rat- hey, what’re you looking at?” Ziyi immediately tried snooping past him, but being shorter and Rusty being broad-shouldered enough to block most of the view into his room, she was forced to half-climb him to peer over his shoulder, despite Rusty’s squawks at her invading his personal space. 

“Ziyi!” Rusty hissed, trying to pry her off to no avail. She was like an aggressive monkey, determined to try and gawk over his shoulder. 

“Stop fussing! Ohhh, unless you were ~busy~ last night?” Ziyi jeered, and planted her hand on top of Rusty’s head, forcing it downwards as she hauled herself upwards. “Who is it? It better not be-”

She stopped. 

“......... Raven,” she finished flatly. 

«Hello,» came the equally flat reply. 

Ziyi immediately climbed down, freeing Rusty from his very awkward position. He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck - only to freeze at the severely disappointed glare Ziyi was levelling at him. 

“...what?” Rusty asked unwisely. 

“You know,” Ziyi said, “I was joking about you and Raven having a break-up. But it turns out that I was right. You’ve inherited Uncle’s bad taste in men.” 

It took an embarrassingly long two seconds for Rusty to understand what Ziyi meant. 

“Oh- no. No, no, no, no! He’s not here because of- of that,” Rusty flustered, quickly gesturing to emphasise his denial as Ziyi judgmentally crossed her arms and stared him down. “We just- we shared the night together, yeah, but-”

“Aha!”

“Not like that!” 

“Ohh, so you two just platonically spent the night together, huh?” Ziyi snorted and planted her hands on her hips. “Pull the other one, Rusty! I can’t believe you went and slept with that scavenger mutt! Whatever happened to that shy little virgin from before-”

“That was ten years ago and- and I’m not discussing that with you right now!” Rusty snapped, horribly aware that his face was bright red and steam was threatening to come whistling out of his ears - clearly Ziyi’s goal, judging by her wicked smile. “Nothing happened, no matter how much you want to pretend otherwise, you freaky little pervert-”

“I’m the pervert? Me?!”

“I haven’t forgotten about that porn stash I found in your room-!”

“Don’t judge me for that! Where’d you think I got half of it? Filched from your stash!”

“That was you?!”

«Excuse me.» 

The robotic voice cut through the increasingly ridiculous argument like a knife through butter. Rusty went ramrod straight, somehow blanching despite the blush reddening his cheeks, and Ziyi briefly looked like a startled hare, before her customary scowl overtook her face as Raven semi-politely elbowed his way into the conversation - literally.

«You’ve misunderstood,» he said. «We slept together, but we didn’t have sex.»  

Rusty made some sort of, strangled noise of overwhelming mortification, right in the back of his throat. Ziyi, however, leered at him distrustfully. 

“Really?” she sniffed. “Well, why not? He’s a good catch. I mean look at him, he used to be beating admirers off with a stick before he fucked off to be a corporate dog.”

“Who’s side are you on?” Rusty hissed at her, only to be waved off with an obnoxious smirk. 

Raven, however, was impervious to Ziyi’s impish sense of humour and compulsion to needle her elders. He simply blinked at her, slowly, like he didn’t quite understand the question. 

And… that was the question, wasn’t it? Raven had admitted he’d lost his memory, and Walter had worked him like a dog since he’d set foot on Rubicon. Did Raven even… know how to…? Did he even have any experience? Remember having experience? Even feel the urge? There were rumours that quite a few Gen Fours were sterile, or had lost their sex drives entirely - and Rusty didn’t recall any moment in time where Raven had exhibited the slightest bit of romantic or sexual interest in anyone or anything. 

It was possible that Raven might not be fully understanding what the hell Ziyi was going on about. Rusty sobered. 

“Ziyi…” he said, and his serious tone had Ziyi immediately frowning. “Look, we shouldn’t joke about that stuff with Raven. He’s not-”

«Are you jealous?» Raven finally asked. «If you want to proposition him, I’m not an obstacle.» 

Rusty’s jaw snapped shut with a small click. 

“Propa….aaaaaauugugghgh!” Ziyi gagged loudly. “Ew! No! No way! I’m not interested in him like that!”

«Then why are you hyper fixating on his sex life?» Raven tilted his head, his expression almost too innocent. «It’s kind of suspicious, you know?»  

Ziyi struggled with herself for a moment, caught in a logic trap that she wasn’t quite sure how to bullrush her way out of without having Raven believing forever that she was crushing on Rusty. It was actually quite nice, to see someone turning the tables on her so effortlessly, and despite feeling a cringe of disgust at the thought of Ziyi being interested in him, he poorly hid a laugh behind a cough. 

“......just- just shut up, and go see Rivers, you degenerates!” she finally snapped, her cheeks slightly pink. “And for the record: I have a boyfriend already, thank you very much!” 

With that, she pivoted on her heel and stormed off, muttering under her breath. Rusty and Raven watched her leave with varying degrees of amusement. 

«…she can dish it out but can’t take it, I see.»

Rusty barked out a laugh. “Well, I think it helped that you caught her off guard.” 

Raven hummed quietly, and he stared down the hallway with a peculiar expression. It almost looked nostalgic. 

«She reminds me ofnevermind.» And just like that, his expression shuttered, leaving his curious statement hanging despite Rusty’s prompting glance. «Let’s go see Rivers.» 

Rusty let it drop, sensing a major minefield around that, and quietly they quickly resumed getting ready before heading off towards Uncle’s office. If Rivers wanted to talk to them about Uncle, that was likely where he was, but why not tell them to see Uncle instead? Ziyi had seemed calm though, so it probably wasn’t anything bad - likely Uncle got pulled into a conference call with the other factions and couldn’t come to the briefing… or something like that.

But…

…he had a bad feeling.

Chapter Text

C4-621 felt very strange. 

It was something similar to grogginess but with far softer edges, and his thoughts felt rather lazy and slow, that bristling, tangled nest of nerves always buzzing in his gut dying down into barely a murmur. As he followed Rusty through the maze-like hallways of the underground Warren, C4-621 had to fight to keep his eyes open and his strides steady. 

It was like… his body had finally gotten a taste of a full, uninterrupted night of sleep and wanted more. The base animal urge to simply lie down on the floor and doze off again was almost overpowering, and the amount of times he had to rub his eyes or pinch the inside of his wrists to resist was actually getting worrisome. 

Sorry, this is my fault. Your implants went a little hyperactive on the melatonin production when I was poking around earlier…  it should clear up in an hour or so.

So endure it until then, was what C4-621 read between the lines. He sighed quietly, but overall he was willing to take a bit of uncomfortable drowsiness if it meant he got to have something like that again. A full night of sleep, without any nightmares or strange thoughts! He felt- good? In a weird way? Not completely, there was still pain and stiffness and mental cobwebs dulling his thoughts, but he felt overall better than usual. His mood almost… steady? Yes, steady. 

The power of a good night’s sleep… 

“You okay there, buddy?” Rusty asked suddenly. “You’re, ah, weaving a little there.”

C4-621 blinked, realising that, yes, his stride had been getting somewhat meandering again. He nodded slowly, and made a vague gesture, trying to wave off Rusty’s concerned frown. 

Instead, Rusty stopped walking. Reluctantly, C4-621 did the same. 

“...if you need some more rest, I can go on ahead to see Rivers,” Rusty said. “I’m pretty sure it’s just going to be about our debrief-”

This man. C4-621 stared flatly at him, not bothering to hide his disdain.

“...fine, but if you fall asleep halfway through the debriefing, I’m not gonna save you from Uncle,” Rusty sniffed, and resumed walking again. C4-621 was just relieved he dropped the subject. 

The rest of the walk continued in silence, C4-621 not recognising any of his surroundings - but that wasn’t new. He couldn’t recognise the garage he and Walter worked out of, and he’d been there for months. Ayre murmured directions in his ear automatically, and he followed those more than he actually followed Rusty, trusting her guidance overall. 

When they finally reached Flatwell’s office, C4-621 couldn’t help but note that Rusty’s frown had never actually faded. In fact, it had only grown more pronounced, a worried tint to his expression as he inputted the code to access the office. It was a look that only intensified when they stepped into the office and found Rivers, not Flatwell, inside. 

“Oh, you’re finally here,” Rivers sighed. He looked familiar in some way, and C4-621 squinted intently at his mousey looks, blond hair and his oil-stained technician jumpsuit, trying to marshal his groggy memory into motion. 

…he’s the head technician of Hangar One. He’s the one who did your synchronisation tests with BASHO yesterday.

Oh. Oh! Right. Yes. 

“Rivers.” Rusty’s tone was unusually brusque. “Where’s Uncle? Ziyi sent us here, but…”

“Right, yes, we should be quick before she comes back,” Rivers said with a faint grimace. “I managed to hide it from her for now, but the moment she realises, she’s going to tear across all of Creation to…”

He trailed off when Rusty gave him a severe look, and sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping as he mumbled: “Uncle didn’t come back last night.”

Ayre gasped quietly, and C4-621 felt something in his stomach drop nauseatingly, his gaze snapping to Rusty who looked… eerily calm. His expression had gone completely blank, his blue eyes unreadable as his posture slackened into something deceptively relaxed. C4-621 wasn’t fooled. 

Subtly, he backed away a few steps.  

“Huh. Is that so?” Rusty said, his tone mild. “When did you last communicate with him?”

“Not long after he made contact with you two…” Rivers said, looking just as uneasy as C4-621 felt in the face of Rusty’s unexpected calm. “He told me he was going to scout out the battlefield and see if he could turn anything up about those ‘Ghost Mechs’ you two encountered. When our salvage team got there, though, he was long gone. I assumed he was following a lead, but then morning came and he… still isn’t back…”

“What did the salvage team find?”

“Nothing but wrecks and scraps.” Rivers blew out a harsh breath. “Those ‘Ghost Mechs’ of yours really did reduce their MTs to nothing but slag. The biggest part of them we could find were bolts. The wrecked transporter gave us more, but its activity log had been completely wiped. Its last coordinate was in the middle of nowhere…” 

“Then that’s where Uncle’s gone, knowing him,” Rusty said simply. “We’ll just go there and investigate. How long will it take you to prep STEEL HAZE ORTUS?”

Here was when Rivers really started to look uneasy. C4-621 knew the answer before he even opened his mouth. 

“Well over twenty-four hours…” Rivers answered. “STEEL HAZE ORTUS sustained quite a bit of cumulative damage between your fight with V.I Freud and those Ghost Mechs, so… when you came back we started with thorough repairs. Even if we halted the repairs and tried to prepare it for a sortie right now, it won’t be ready to go for another twelve hours at least.”

Rusty crossed his arms tightly over his chest and drummed his fingers agitatedly against his biceps. 

“STEEL HAZE?” he asked, his tone dangerously curt. 

“Still not ready for deployment. Raven, er, really did a number on it when you two fought, and overloading its Pulse Armour completely wrecked its generator. We’ve replaced the arm and parts of its armour, but we don’t have a spare generator on hand. Not one that can handle the Nachtreiher’s energy requirements, anyways…”

Rusty started pacing, back and forth, back and forth, short, sharp little motions. Both C4-621 and Rivers watched him warily. 

“...Rokumonsen can’t deploy either, as SHINOBI is still being repaired from its fight with V.I Freud…” Rivers continued. “Our only option is to send Ziyi-”

“She can’t go by herself,” Rusty interrupted and stopped his pacing. “She’ll get herself killed.”

“She’s a good pilot.” 

“She’s brash, inexperienced and hotheaded,” Rusty snapped, and finally the clouds were gathering in his expression, dark and thunderous. “She isn’t augmented either. She’s good against basic corporate MTs, but for those Ghost Mechs, or one of the remaining Vespers? They’ll chew her up and spit her back out again.” 

“Then…” Rivers hesitated before nodding at C4-621. “What about him?”

Rusty’s gaze swung round to land on him, scrutinising and unreadable. C4-621 evaded it, standing perfectly still as he lowered his eyes to the floor. He couldn’t help but feel a visceral, sticky kind of familiarity about it all, of standing quietly on the sidelines with candid chatter of

what about him? Asset 04’s skillset is suitable for a hunting mission-

“BASHO is still good to go, and he could escort Ziyi, protect her,” Rivers continued. “And even in that ancient piece of junk-”

-it’s true PREDATOR is a little outdated compared to the other Symbiotic Cores, but Asset 04 can neutralise-

“-any of the Vespers, you know that. I’m sure those two will be able to hunt down Uncle together.” 

“I know that,” Rusty said quietly. He sounded conflicted. “But…”

-he’s still malfunctioning from Luyten, isn’t he? Can we-

“-trust him?”

C4-621 raised his head fractionally. Rivers was frowning at Rusty, his hands on his hips.

“What?” Rusty said.

“I said, don’t you trust him?” Rivers said exasperatedly. “He’s a merc, an outsider, I get that, but Uncle was willing to take a chance on him. And, to be frank, we really don’t have a choice right now. What do you think’ll happen once it gets out Uncle is missing? We’re already reeling from Father Dolmayan and Freddie’s disappearances…” 

“It’s not that…” Rusty sighed explosively. “Aside from trust, there’s also…” 

There was a taut pause, one where Rusty glanced pointedly at C4-621, but what he was trying to silently convey, he couldn’t even guess. Was it that Rusty truly didn’t trust him if he wasn’t there to directly supervise? Was he thinking about C4-621’s moment of weakness last night? His potentially degrading health? A mixture of all three? 

“...what do you think?” Rusty asked. 

Rivers didn’t answer. C4-621 lowered his gaze to the floor, awaiting orders. 

“Buddy.” Rusty took a step towards him, his boots coming into view. “What do you think?”

C4-621 raised his head.

Rusty was looking down at him with a stern expression: frustrated almost, but resigned. There was a weight to his stare, again, like he was trying to silently convey something C4-621 was ill-equipped to decipher that stare… but he felt like he understood the situation. Rusty was confirming that C4-621 was mission capable and understood the objective: protect Ziyi and retrieve Middle Flatwell. 

 He dug out his communication device. 

«It’s the logical choice.»

Rusty sighed quietly, running a hand through his hair. 

“...okay,” he said, looking very much like he wanted to say something else. “Then… I guess that’s what we’ll do. Ziyi and Raven will look for Uncle and bring him back.”

No ifs or trys. Failure wasn’t an option, then. C4-621 nodded to show he acknowledged the implicit command. 

“Alright. I’ll prep BASHO and YUE YU for deployment,” Rivers said, already moving towards the door. C4-621 side-stepped to let him past. “No doubt Ziyi’s going to come barging into the garage soon anyways…”

Rusty said nothing. The door closing behind Rivers sounded uncomfortably loud, leaving a silence that felt like it had sucked all the air out of the room. 

“You sure about this?” Rusty finally asked. “I mean, last night…”

Ah. He was worried about his potential performance. C4-621 hastened to reassure him: «I’m mission capable.»

“You’d say that even if you were missing your arms and legs,” Rusty scoffed. “Look, I know you’re capable, and this isn’t about trust exactly-”

C4-621 shook his head. «It is.»

“Hm?”

«You’re doubting my capabilities because you think I’m too damaged to achieve the objective,» C4-621 said bluntly. He keenly watched Rusty’s expression, feeling a bit of nerves at how it went back to the previous unnerving blankness of before, but he forged onwards. «I’m mission capable. There’s no risk of failure on my part. I’ll finish the job.»

“I’m not- that’s not what I’m-” Rusty cut himself off with a frustrated sigh. “Raven, just listen to me for two minutes.”

C4-621 obligingly fixed him with his full attention. 

“...I told you earlier, didn’t I? I’ve got your back, even if it’s against yourself. It’s hard for us to trust each other, I get that, but just because I distrust you, doesn’t mean that I want you to get hurt when it can be avoided, that I’ll stand by and let you hurt yourself because you’ve got some twisted idea of always being mission capable,” Rusty said in a tone just shy of scathing. “You’re not a machine, Raven. You’re a person, no matter how much you try to pretend otherwise.”

Rusty paused to take a bracing breath. His expression was tight, discomforted, and he wasn’t properly looking at him. C4-621 continued to give him his full attention. There were still ninety seconds remaining of the allotted two minutes remaining. 

“What happened last night, you admitting to migraines every time you pilot your AC, and… other things. There’s clearly something wrong with your implants, medically, I mean, and if piloting an AC exacerbates that, then…” 

Rusty shook his head. “What if you have a fit mid-mission, because you were concealing your symptoms to stay ‘mission capable’? You can seriously put yourself at risk.”

«And fail the mission,» C4-621 added. 

“We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about you. You, specifically,” Rusty half-snapped. “Do you not give a shit about yourself, at all? Is ‘the mission’ the only thing you care about? There’s more to life than being someone’s attack dog, Raven. There’re other reasons to exist.”

(“I’ll give you a reason to exist… 621.”)

C4-621 looked away. 

Rusty was so confusing. Just when C4-621 thought he started to understand where Rusty stood regarding him, he sharply changed his position in a blink of an eye, leaving him terribly off-balance. Did Rusty care about him as an asset to exploit, or as a comrade? If it was as an asset, then he was strangely hesitant to use him to his full extent, and if it was as a comrade, then he had a funny way of showing it: backstabbing him in the Depths, calling him a threat to be eliminated, stifling him because he thought him damaged and weak. 

Rusty needed to pick a lane and stick with it. 

«My reason to exist is to be a hound,» C4-621 finally said. «I want to be a hound.»   

“Do you really believe that?” Rusty asked quietly. He drew a breath as if he was going to add more, but after a taut pause he just shook his head, something in his expression shuttering. “Never mind. You’re just mindlessly parroting Walter’s words, aren’t you? Whatever he says, you just believe without hesitation, right?”

C4-621 considered him. Rusty’s words were bitter.

«He’s my handler.»

“He’s your owner,” Rusty refuted. “He bought you, Raven. He doesn’t think of you as anything but a tool to be used and thrown away. Why give your loyalty to someone like that?”

C4-621 felt a peculiar feeling rise in him. His face felt hot, a weird kind of pressure in his throat and chest as he tightened his grip around his communication device. Unintentionally, Rusty had blundered right into the middle of a topic C4-621 did not want to discuss, and the abrupt confrontation of it had his stomach immediately in knots. 

«He’s my handler,» he repeated. «I’m his hound.»

“Am I talking to a fucking wall-” Rusty cut himself off with a deep breath, marshalling his composure. “There’s more to life than being a hound. That’s what I’m saying.”

C4-621 didn’t respond. 

“And… and with the Liberation Front, you can… find that,” Rusty continued awkwardly. “You say you don’t remember anything before Walter, so you… you probably don’t know any better, what kind of life you can have. You don’t have to pilot if you don’t want to, if it hurts you, and-”

C4-621 shook his head, cutting him off. 

«No,» he said when Rusty obligingly stopped talking. «No. I’m saving Walter. I’m his hound. I’m saving Walter.»

Rusty studied him, his expression distinctly unhappy at whatever he saw on his face. C4-621 still felt hot and twitchy, and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep his expression perfectly straight, but something must’ve shown through regardless, because Rusty dropped the subject entirely without a word. 

“...the mission’s probably going to be a long one, if the coordinates Uncle headed to are far away,” Rusty murmured. “Make sure to get some breakfast before you deploy.”

C4-621 didn’t bother to acknowledge his words. He just turned away and promptly fled the room as quickly as he could without outright breaking into a run.

Rusty didn’t stop him. 

Despite his rattled nerves, C4-621 did go and get some breakfast as ordered. He ate it quickly - for him - a bland, watery porridge that sat a bit too heavily in his stomach, even after washing it down with a cup of water. It did little to improve his mood, and by the time he’d reached Hangar One he was eager to get away from the Warrens for a bit and immerse himself in the far more familiar and simple world that was the battlefield. 

He knew he was being irrational. He shouldn’t have gotten so worked up over Rusty’s misguided words. He didn’t understand anything that didn’t fit his rigid worldview of what an ‘acceptable’ purpose was, after all… 

I think he was just concerned…

A bit late for that, isn’t it? 

…

Ayre’s silence was pointed, like there was something she intensely wanted to say. In that time, C4-621 climbed up the boarding catwalk stairs slowly, and watched the technicians do last-minute deployment checks on BASHO. By the time he reached the top of the stairs he had to pause to catch his breath, deeply winded. 

He isn’t exactly wrong.

Ayre’s words were more like a mutter than anything. C4-621 frowned. 

There’s more to life than being Walter’s hound.

Perhaps. 

Ayre waited expectantly, but C4-621 didn’t engage any further on the topic. He could already tell it’d fall into a terse disagreement. Ayre was always swift to point out Walter’s shadier dealings and outright lies, while C4-621 was content to maintain a manufactured obliviousness about them. Usually they agreed to disagree, but recently Ayre had been getting a bit more direct about the whole thing. 

I know Walter means a lot to you, Raven. I know that he’s done much for you. But at the same time… he’s used you in ways he hasn’t been honest about. 

He’s aware. 

That ‘friend’ of his… they didn’t exist. All those missions he gave you about investigating the Xylem and the Institute ruins were all from him.  

There was no correspondence with anyone else, no matter what he said. He hid his true intentions from you. He…

Lied. 

Yes. But you already knew that.

Of course he did. 

And… you’re fine with that? You don’t see anything wrong?

Why would he? Walter was his handler. He didn’t have to tell him the truth about anything. C4-621 had been purchased to function as a convenient weapon on Rubicon’s surface, and you don’t whisper the intricate details of your strategies and plans to your rifle, do you?

Raven, you’re not-

Or, you could, but it’d be very weird. Pointless, even. So, Walter had lied, probably, but he just didn’t want C4-621 to get confused and bogged down in the details, when it wasn’t relevant for him to know. It was enough to know that ‘this mission came from a friend’ or ‘we’re going here to plant our flag in a coral deposit’. C4-621 didn’t need to know anything more than that. 

He was using you.

And that’s what you did with good dogs and reliable weapons. You used them. That was their sole purpose in life: being useful, being used, trying their best until they couldn’t anymore. C4-621 didn’t need to have dreams, or fret about independent life, so long as he had someone to grasp his leash and-

Raven.

Ayre sounded upset. C4-621 tugged at the sleeve of his flight suit, discomforted. A taut pause stretched between them before Ayre let out a tired sigh, something almost apologetic in her voice as she said: 

I’m not trying to pit you against Walter. It’s just… you’re more than just a hound mindlessly obeying orders. You’re a person who has feelings of their own, who deserves to have their own hopes and dreams. 

You’re Raven.  

You should be spreading your wings and taking flight, to freer skies.

C4-621 looked down at the grated metal beneath his boots. It was easy to brush away Rusty as a nosy busybody who had no idea what he was talking about, but Ayre was much more difficult. She knew him better than anyone, saw and experienced the same things he did, knew his deepest darkest feelings and secrets, and still saw something worth sticking by. 

(“I want to protect you, as much as I can, and to support you - unconditionally.”

“I love you, as a most precious friend.”) 

The only person to ever love him, for him. Everything she said came from a place that only meant him well, even if it was about… Walter. He couldn’t brush her words away, and yet. He just… he couldn’t face them right now. His reason to exist, it was Walter, it had to be Walter, he couldn’t just toss that aside, not now, not until…

I know… I’m sorry, this wasn’t the time to discuss it. You’re about to depart on a sortie, after all.

Ayre’s voice was quiet and subdued. C4-621 didn’t know what to say in response. 

He was saved from trying to think of something though. Footsteps thumped against the catwalk, and he raised his head and turned to see a somewhat frazzled Rivers approaching him, his expression caught between an attempt at a smile and a discomforted grimace. 

“Raven, good timing,” Rivers said. “BASHO is almost ready to go and… Ziyi has been informed of the mission. Just to warn you, she’s not overly happy about the arrangement…”

Rivers ruefully rubbed his ear as if in remembered pain. C4-621 wondered if Ziyi was angry about being deceived, or about being partnered up with him, the ‘scavenger mutt’. He supposed it didn’t matter. It didn’t change his priority objective: protect Ziyi and retrieve Flatwell. 

“Just to warn you, Ziyi’s a bit of a firecracker, and she takes great pride in being a Coral warrior,” Rivers continued. “She’s only known outsiders to be greedy vultures preying on the Coral, but if you continue to help out the Liberation Front, she’ll warm up to you. Eventually… maybe…”

C4-621 just shrugged, keeping his gaze fixed on BASHO. He didn’t care what she thought of him so long as she didn’t make his mission difficult to achieve. 

“At the very least, helping her find Uncle will make her a lot more amicable towards you.” Rivers unhooked his datapad from his tool belt, checking something that was flashing on its screen. “Hm… oh, and, before I forget… I noticed that BASHO didn’t come equipped with any text communication aids. I’m assuming you used your implants to generate text messages to send over open comms?”

C4-621 nodded. 

“Thought so. Well, I installed a little something into BASHO to help facilitate communication. You won’t always be working alongside Rusty, who’s probably used to your way of working.” Rivers hooked his datapad back onto his belt. “It’s a voice communicator that was developed to help those who suffered from damaged vocal cords… er, jury rigged into an AC it wasn’t really meant to interface with, but I made it work. We’re pretty good at mashing together salvage to make something functional, haha!” 

C4-621 fished out his own communication device, and typed: «How does it work?»

“Easily! Or, it should. Uh, technically this will be its test run,” Rivers admitted. “It’ll work via your implants. From what I understand, you’ll just have to ‘think’ what words you want to say, and it’ll say it into your comms. Not sure how good it is with inflection or conveying emotion, but it’ll be less processing work on your end, and the person you’re trying to communicate with won’t have to split their attention between reading text and piloting.”

Rivers sighed. “For an augmented human, that might be easy, but for someone like Ziyi? It might be a dangerous distraction…” 

C4-621 was beginning to wonder just how competent Ziyi actually was as a pilot, with both Rusty and Rivers fretting over her so much. If she could handle herself fine, then why was there so much handwringing? If she was incompetent, why did they let her run off in an AC endangering herself? What was it about the RLF and being so confusing and contradictory?

It’s not that simple. If you care for someone, even if they’re skilled, you still worry about them…

“Ah, looks like BASHO’s ready to go,” Rivers said, returning a thumbs up one of the technicians on BASHO’s shoulder had held up. “Ziyi was planning on deploying within twenty minutes. Think you’ll be ready for then?”

C4-621 nodded. It’d take only a few minutes for him to fully synchronise with BASHO and do pre-flight checks. 

“Good. Uh…” Rivers paused, rubbing the back of his neck. “Look. You’re an outsider, and I know you have some kind of deal with Uncle that you were likely coerced into, but… thanks, for this. If you bring Uncle back, we’ll be in your debt.”

Rivers lowered his hand and gave him a smile. “You’ll definitely earn some goodwill, that’s for sure. Good luck, Raven. Try not to let Ziyi bully you too much, eh?”

C4-621 nodded, and watched as Rivers trotted off, raising a hand to his ear and talking to someone on the other end of his communicator. He wondered if he’d be acting as mission control, or if he would be deferring to Ziyi as his superior for the rest of this mission. The Liberation Front were fairly lackadaisical when it came to command structure, weren’t they…

Let’s get going, Raven. I have a feeling Ziyi won’t wait patiently for us.

He made a small, acknowledging sound, and pivoted on his heel, walking down the catwalk towards BASHO’s entry hatch. Around him the garage was a cacophony of noise, the pre-departure warning lights already beginning to flash as the floor plate started to be cleared of any obstructions. He knew he should be focusing on the mission to come, but…

C4-621 just didn’t quite understand why everyone was so concerned with him and his business. Flatwell had secured his services as a useful asset, yet no one treated him properly as one. Everything was couched as suggestions or requests, and there was an expectation he understood how to live independently - that he wanted to live independently. If living with the Liberation Front was going to be this confusing and uncertain all the time, why would he want to stay here? To step out of the comforting box that was marked ‘C4-621’?

He was a hound. He was an augmented human. He was an asset. These were not things you… cared about… or loved… 

…let’s just focus on the mission for now, Raven. 

Yes. Of course. Hunting down targets were always focus-intensive missions. He can’t allow himself to be distracted.

Right…

C4-621 climbed into BASHO’s cockpit, the hatch sealing shut behind him. It was different to STALKER’s, to PREDATOR’s, yet it was an AC cockpit all the same. His birthplace and his deathbed, all rolled into one comforting place. He felt something in him settle, tension in his gut unspooling as he picked up the cerebral spike and held it steady. 

This was where he belonged. This is what he was good at. This was what he understood. 

He inserted the spike, riding out the expected nauseating pain as usual.  

This was the reason he existed. 

It was comforting.

“I’m an idiot…”

Rusty sat at Uncle’s desk, his head in his hands, as he mentally reran the conversation through his mind. He’d lost his cool, admittedly. He’d let his stress and worry over Uncle spill over into his stress and worry over Raven and… 

Nothing he said was wrong, but he could’ve picked a better time and place for it. 

And… better words…

“Why is he so stubborn…?” Rusty growled, throwing himself back in his chair and crossing his arms, glowering at the black screen of Uncle’s terminal. He crossed his legs at the knee, his boot bumping against the desk and waking the terminal up from its sleep mode. 

“He has to see that Walter’s no… good…” Rusty trailed off, his brow furrowing as he just processed what was on Uncle’s terminal. It was his email app, and he knew he shouldn’t look, but the app was flashing, highlighting a new email with the big bold words in its title: AUG HMNS LIST (AG, BI, RRI, UEG, CIT) (IMPORTANT!).

He shouldn’t. 

But it was hard to stifle that instinct to stick his nose where it didn’t belong. He’d spent the past ten years as a spy, and this exact moment was like a big red flag to a snorting bull. Without even thinking about it he sat forwards, opening up the email and skimming its contents. 

“You burned through THREE favours for this. Don’t ask me to look into CIT again. Not even Hell would take those monsters.

-Weaver”

One of Uncle’s contacts, most likely. Rusty eyed the attached PDFs, quickly deciphering that ‘AG’ was Arquebus Group, ‘BI’ was Balam Industries, RRI was ‘Rubicon Research Institute’ and ‘UEG’ was United Earth Government. He’d never heard of ‘CIT’ before, though there was something that scratched his memories about it. 

“A now defunct company?” Rusty muttered to himself, as he opened up the AG PDF. As expected it had the entire list of all augmented humans certified underneath an Arquebus augmentation surgeon. They had their own unique designation: AA followed by the generation and their number. For example, Rusty’s was AA8-361, and a quick CTRL-F had him finding that pretty quickly. 

He grimaced at the unflattering mugshot attached to his designation. He had that taken not long after his surgery and had felt like crap afterwards - he’d clearly looked like it too. 

Hm. So, that meant if he looked at RRI… 

Rusty closed out of AG and opened up the RRI PDF, looking for O’Keeffe. As expected, he was there under C2-777, with a mugshot that Rusty barely recognised. He looked so disarmingly young, with no scruff and no bags under his eyes, though he seemed a bit bleary-eyed. It was unnerving. 

“You’ve aged centuries, my friend,” Rusty half-laughed, his tone wry. Out of curiosity, he searched for Uncle next, and his wry smile faded at how young he looked too. 

Barely twenty, from the looks of it. He was smiling in his mugshot too, a pleasant yet nervous gesture, his cheeks still holding a bit of puppy fat to them. It left Rusty feeling slightly off-kilter, seeing someone he looked up to be so… vulnerable. 

He paused, drumming his fingers against the edge of the desk. He shouldn’t, but since he was already here…

He searched for C4-621, and blinked when… 

Someone else entirely showed up. 

The mugshot showed a woman for starters, though that didn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t Raven. He could’ve transitioned since he got his augmentations, but the woman looked wildly different. Heavily tanned with bright green eyes and light brown hair. Her facial structure was different too. It was just… another person entirely. 

“Huh.” Rusty wasn’t all that surprised. “So, looks like Raven wasn’t the only identity you stole.”

Walter would’ve been on it too. Maybe he was the one who gave that designation to Raven in the first place. He’d have to be… for Raven to get ALLMIND to associate a licence with him, it’d have to be tied to his identification chip… which in this case would be his augmentation chip from RRI… so, C4-621’s… 

Rusty stared off into space, pondering that. Raven was clearly a Gen Four, and only RRI was doing Coral augmentations around the 600s time, so Raven should’ve had an augmentation chip to begin with. He wouldn’t need to borrow someone else’s, unless…

(It didn’t look like a barcode: it was one, a series of alternating black lines and dots that almost took up the entire narrow width of Raven’s wrist… the letters underneath said: “A04-23C”.)

Rusty closed the RRI PDF, and opened up the mysterious CIT one. The topmost entry said A01-01C. 

For some reason, he felt his heartbeat pick up as he searched for A04-23C. The PDF snapped downwards to the relevant entry, and unlike the AG and RRI, there was no other information except the designation: no name, no age or date of birth or anything like that. Just a designation. 

And a mugshot. 

Rusty stared for a long time at it, unable to formulate a single thought. He was horribly aware of his pounding heartbeat, almost deafening him as he absorbed just what exactly he was looking at. 

( “ Don’t ask me to look into CIT again. Not even Hell would take those monsters.”)

It was undeniably Raven. The same eyes, reddish brown - a sign of Coral augmentation - with half-curled dark brown hair. There was no scar slashing across his throat and over his jaw, though. There was no blank expression. Raven looked scared in this mugshot, like he was barely holding back tears, with a hand barely in view holding the back of his neck, as if to keep him in place. 

Because he was a child. 

He was a child. 

Raven… had been augmented… as a child.

(“Not even Hell would take those monsters.”)

Rusty wordlessly closed the PDF and marked the email as unread. He put Uncle’s terminal back to sleep and leaned back in his seat, his arms crossed as he stared at absolutely nothing. 

Well. 

Suddenly a lot of things about Raven made a horrible amount of sense.

Chapter Text

The journey was a long and silent one. 

Aside from the dull roar of BASHO’s engines and the thrum of its boosters, there was absolutely nothing else to occupy C4-621's attention as he and Ziyi flew across the Central Ice Fields’ empty expanse. The skies above were heavy with black, ominous clouds, and a thin veil of snow blotted out the horizon, making everything fuzzy and grey-tinged through his frosted over ocular feeds. On the horizon, a tiny blue dot blinked, BASHO’s navigational systems guiding him unerringly towards the coordinates Flatwell had likely travelled to.

It was so easy to get lost on these ice fields. Even before his capture by the RLF, before he went into the Depths, the missions he had conducted on these fields always carried a risk of getting navigationally disorientated and heading well off target. The snow could come down so hard and fast it scrambled long-range scanners, and the ambient Coral found in the air’s moisture could ping false positives and send any unwary pilot into literal circles, their navigational systems slowly decaying until they were thoroughly lost amongst an endless sea of white ice. 

There were so few landmarks to use, and those that existed barely stood out from a distance. Remnants of old Coral harvesting facilities, oil refineries, and other industrial complexes jutted out of the ice and snow in broken angles and rusted hulks, so uniform that even when derelict they looked almost identical to one another. The more unique settlements were likely buried beneath miles worth of permafrost, or had sunk below the planet’s crust like Institute City, locked away until someone went through the effort of digging up their bones - and even then, only to loot them for what they’re worth. 

It made for a fairly boring journey, emphasised by the cold silence that lurked between him and his mission partner. Ziyi had spoken little and curtly when they had departed, and C4-621 was somewhat unsure on how to broach it or if he even should. 

He had only met Ziyi once, and it was to her overtly disapproving of him in general. Combined with the high levels of stress she was no doubt under from Flatwell’s disappearance, and C4-621 was certain that any attempt at conversation from himself would be very unwelcome. Since his mission was to protect her, it’d be wise not to alienate her unduly… it’d make his life more difficult. 

Technically, you’ve met her before. 

He had? C4-621 blinked, wracking his memory, but nothing came to mind. He had done multiple missions for the RLF, as well as against them, yet not once did he recall hearing Ziyi’s voice or name… 

It was a mission given to us by the Liberation Front. We aided them in liberating a few of their own from Balam.

Oh, was that when they encountered Nile?

Yes. 

Right, now C4-621 remembered…

…

…well, no, actually he didn’t. He knew the mission Ayre spoke of, but he literally didn’t recall Ziyi at all. If she was a prisoner being rescued though, then it made sense, as he would’ve annotated her - and the other prisoners - as not important enough to dedicate much memory to. Nile, on the other hand, stuck out because he had been an interesting opponent that had fled a bit too quickly for his tastes. 

Hm, he wondered what had become of Nile, thinking about it… 

Likely he’s the one still commanding the surviving Redguns.

Which was Nile, Iguazu, and however many MT squads they had remaining. With the Vesper’s more numerous roster and their uplifted mechs, the war was going to be very short lived. Strategically, it made sense for Arquebus to focus their might on crushing the remnants of Balam and driving them entirely from the planet before pivoting towards the RLF, whose ability to withstand a focused assault was dubious at best. 

But corporations were arrogant and complacent, at least in C4-621’s experience, so he was fairly certain Arquebus were going to brush off both camps as nuisances and ignore them until they crossed a redline or some sort. What those redlines were was anyone’s guess… 

In any case, that was an irrelevant problem to their current objectives. C4-621 neatly shunted aside that idle thought, refocusing on his predicament: Ziyi, his current mission partner, and how he should broach this frigid silence between them. 

…maybe request a test of the speech module Rivers installed? We should make sure it works properly in case we’re pulled into combat. 

Right, good call. 

He opened up an encrypted channel and sent in text: «Ziyi. This is Atoll, requesting a comms check.»

There was a pause of about twelve seconds before he got a rather short response: “Our comms are fine, scavenger mutt. What do you really want?”

C4-621 shrugged off the surly tone as easily as water sliding off a duck’s back. Keeping his gaze fixed on the blinking blue dot that guided them towards the colourless horizon, he said: «Rivers installed a speech module into my AC. I want to test it now while things are quiet.»

Another delayed pause - was Ziyi a slow reader? - before he heard her sigh explosively on the other end. She didn’t say anything immediately, but neither did she cut comms, and after almost forty one seconds of huffing, sighing and incoherent grumbling, Ziyi finally acquiesced. 

“Okay, fine. How does it work?”

Well, he was about to find out. «I’m not sure. Give me a moment to test.»

The speech module was an actual physical component that looked like it had been bolted onto the cockpit’s console with duct-tape and very optimistic prayers, a blocky piece of tech that had ‘OMNILERT’ etched into its side - some now defunct corporation, no doubt. A bit of prodding at his AC’s installed software had him finding it easily enough, but when he tried activating it… nothing really happened. 

Hm… it’s requesting permissions to certain parts of your implants that you lack the authority to grant…

Right. A speech module that interfaced directly with neural implants would require a level of access many would deem sensitive. C4-621 frowned, unsure on how to approach this issue. While most would be able to simply grant permission, C4-621’s implants were far more restrictive - by design, of course. CIT hadn’t trusted any of their valuable ‘assets’ to manage their implants without supervision, and Walter had been too leery of prodding around software he was unfamiliar with to try and change that. 

Fortunately for you, I can spoof the required authority. At least, for the speech module. One moment.

C4-621 waited, a prickly, itching sensation briefly zipping through his grey matter. After a moment, something clicked, and he found himself now able to interface with the speech module’s software.

There. I was able to allow a connection. You’re unable to edit or customise anything about the speech module though. You’ll have to use its default voice, which is…

Ayre trailed off awkwardly and C4-621 checked. The default voice was… ah.

“Hey, what’s taking so long?” Ziyi complained. “Is it broken or something?”

Well, beggars can’t be choosers, and C4-621 wasn’t overly bothered. He sent a quick text over: «No. I had to grant certain permissions for it to work. I’m stuck with the default voice, though.»

“Better than nothing. C’mon, let’s hear it.”

Well, here goes. It was clunkier than simply using Ayre to type up his text responses, but after a few false starts, sent through the speech module which then verbalised it for him: “This is Atoll, testing communications.”

The voice had a faint crackle to it, the speakers in need of upgrading, but otherwise sounded perfectly human to the untrained ear. It had little emotion to it, not unlike C4-621’s text-to-speech communication device, but its enunciation was more natural sounding, more human, with a very soft cadence and a neutral accent. It was the type of voice commonly heard over the tannoy in tram stations, or in spaceports, gently reminding people of departure and arrival times, or giving people directions from some sort of map app. It was the galaxy-wide default for any service-AI that was required to directly converse with humans on a day-to-day business. 

It was, what was colloquially known as, the Siri Voice. 

“Oh my god,” Ziyi said. “That’s the Siri Voice.” 

“It’s the default voice.”

“You sound like a chatbot!”

“Is that a problem?”

Ziyi just laughed, clearly finding some sort of humour in all this. Personally, C4-621 didn’t see what was so funny. Was it because the Siri Voice was feminine? Because it was known to belong to service chatbots? What? 

“Oh, this is perfect… you sound like ALLMIND’s twin sister or something.”

“She likely uses a derivative of the Siri Voice for her voice pack.”

Ziyi giggled, but quickly regained control over herself with a quiet sigh. 

“I needed that,” she muttered mostly to herself, then louder: “Well, at least we can talk properly now. No offence, but it’s really distracting trying to read your texts while paying attention to my monitor.”

“Are you a slow reader?”

“I read fine!” Ziyi snapped hotly. “It’s just- I’m not augmented like you and Rusty and Uncle, so it’s really hard reading the tiny ass print on your text while paying attention to everything else.”

So, she is a slow reader. “I assume you have a minimalistic HUD.”

“...so what if I do?”

Ziyi’s tone was stiff, taut in a way that reminded him of a tripwire being placed under tension: preemptively defensive. There was nothing wrong with using a minimalistic HUD, but it was something normally used by amateur pilots who were easily overwhelmed by too much information, or heavily experienced augmented pilots who got all the battlefield data they needed from their own implants. C4-621, for example, used a minimalistic HUD, as his implants easily processed and projected the necessary information as and when it was needed. 

He didn’t have to say this, however. Ziyi’s defensive tone told him enough. Considering Rusty and Rivers’s comments…

(“She can’t go by herself. She’ll get herself killed.” 

“She’s brash, inexperienced and hotheaded.”

“But for someone like Ziyi? It might be a dangerous distraction…”) 

…he couldn’t help but wonder if she was being coddled. She was clearly skilled enough to upgrade from an MT to an AC, yet Rusty and Rivers openly voiced their disapproval and doubt in front of a complete stranger (him) unprompted. But then why let her pilot in the first place? Was she good or was she a hindrance? What was it with these people being so illogically contrary…  

He may as well just cut to the chase. 

“Nothing. It implies that you’re an inexperienced pilot.” 

“Inexperienced-?!” Ziyi made a few incoherent noises of pure insult. “I’ll have you know I’ve been in hundreds of sorties! Successful ones! I don’t need you to babysit me!”

“According to Rusty and Rivers, I do.”

“I am a Coral Warrior!” Ziyi proclaimed dramatically. C4-621 had no idea what a ‘Coral Warrior’ was. “Just because I haven’t been piloting for three decades like half the pilots on this planet doesn’t mean that I’m incompetent at what I do! Those two just think of me as a little kid, no matter how many corporate dogs I’ve killed!”

“How many have you killed?”

“Too many to count!” Ziyi answered immediately. “Hundreds, even! I got captured once! Once! That doesn’t mean I need to be babysat by some scavenger mutt like you. I’m a grown fucking woman, a professional killer, just like Rusty… just like you!”

“That’s not something to boast about.”

“Of course it isn’t,” Ziyi’s tone was scathing - bitter. “But it’s what you interlopers have turned all of us into. If we want to survive, we have to kill, and we have to kill well. Do you think any of us enjoy this?”

C4-621 didn’t respond, the ensuing silence filled by the rumble of BASHO’s engine and boosters. There wasn’t an AC pilot he had met who didn’t, on some sort of level, enjoy fighting, enjoy killing. Even if they began out of necessity, desperation, coercion, they all learned to enjoy it.

You had to, and the detached nature of it all made it so easy. There was no blood, no gory corpses or entrails to stand over and process. There were no bodies but the burnt out wrecks of mechs, spilled oil, broken pistons, ripped wiring - so easy to dehumanise, so easy to tune out the piercing, agonised death screams over crackling comms. If you think you’re destroying simple mechs with simple minds and soulless hearts, then it was very enjoyable. You learned to enjoy it. 

You had to. 

“Tch.” Ziyi made a disgusted noise, reading C4-621’s silence for what it was. “Should’ve known better than to ask that of an attack dog like you.”

“Don’t you enjoy killing corporate soldiers?” C4-621 asked, more curious than anything. 

“I feel satisfaction in killing them. That’s totally different.”

“How so?”

“How so- well, it’s obvious! They’re invaders, so I’m satisfied when I kill an invader!” Ziyi snapped, her tone becoming oddly flustered. “I don’t get some- some sick and twisted enjoyment outta killing them. I’m angry and I hate them, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it!”

Faintly, C4-621 recalled a phrase, spoken in a lilting voice that brought both fondness and pain in equal measure. C4-619… teasing C4-617 as per usual, drawling a very coy: “the lady doth protest too much~”

“What did you just say?” Ziyi huffed, and with a jerk C4-621 realised that his speech module had actually articulated that.

Never mind. Perhaps a bit rudely put, but it had been C4-621’s honest thought. “You sound like you’re in denial. It’s natural to enjoy killing those that have hurt you. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“Yes there is! Uncle says that what we’re doing is an ‘unfortunate necessity’. It’s not something to be enjoyed.”

“But it is.”

“I’m a Coral Warrior!” Ziyi declared once more, yet it sounded less proud and more… self-soothing, a mantra to repeat when you find your will wavering. “It’s a noble profession, one that demands sacrifice and dedication. We’re honourable and strong, forged in ash, standing as one! We don’t have time to seek some sick enjoyment killing others… we don’t do it to satisfy ourselves!”

It sounded like she was quoting someone, words half-remembered but the emotion no less faded from it. C4-621 let silence creep in on the heels of Ziyi’s dramatic speech, his mind slotting several things together abruptly. 

She was young, wasn’t she? She sounded young, acted young, yet was skilled enough to claim an AC over far older and more experienced Rubiconian MT pilots. Skill and talent didn’t impart maturity or mental robustness, though, and possessing the emotional flexibility to kill unflinchingly was something usually learned through painful experience. A few had the natural talent for it, but that usually came with accompanying mental deficiencies that threatened to evolve into something far less predictable and far more dangerous…

‘Coral Warrior’. A buffer, a mantle to hide under, to fend off unpleasant realisations about one’s self and the coping mechanisms that came with it. Ziyi was performing a noble purpose, she was killing out of solemn duty, and with success came satisfaction, but there was no true enjoyment… she told herself. To enjoy it would mean she was no different to the independent and corporate mercenaries swarming Rubicon, and that was a trait she refused to share. 

He contemplated pressing her. It’d be best to be more honest with herself in this respect, but Ayre abruptly spoke up: 

Don’t. Just leave it, Raven. Let her have this.

He obeyed. 

“I see,” he said. “I don’t understand, but if that’s what you say, then I believe you.”

“Well- good.” Ziyi’s response was stiff. “Because it’s true.”

“Okay.”

Then total, awkward, silence.  

It was somehow worse than the frigid silence from when they’d first left the base, because there was an odd kind of weight to it that C4-621 didn’t know how to parse. Ziyi hadn’t closed their encrypted comms, but neither was she contributing to the conversation anymore - as stilted as it had been. C4-621 scanned the featureless horizon for a distraction, or a topic, but just saw an endless stretch of white, snow fuzzing his ocular feeds, and the black clouds blocking out the sky above. 

It looked depressing. 

(If we want to survive, we have to kill, and we have to kill well. Do you think any of us enjoy this?”)

Of course not. Not this specifically. C4-621 didn’t quite understand why the Rubiconians stayed here, on a planet barely sustaining what little life remained, derelict and ruined and beset by hungry jackals at every turn. Any sane person would’ve left by now. Life in the other frontier colonies was hard, but liveable. If they were lucky, they could even win the jackpot in the solar colonies, getting a shot at the bronze citizenship they dangled so temptingly for the working class masses. 

Why did they stay here? Why did Rusty throw away everything he had built for himself outside of Rubicon for this? This broken husk of a planet? He didn’t really get it. 

…because it’s home.

But it’s borderline hostile to human life. To those of the Coral, it was still home, but for humans-

It’s still home. Even when razed, you’ll want to defend it, to love it still.

C4-621 didn’t understand. 

But he supposed he never would. He never had a ‘home’. Not in the way that Ayre meant it, in any case. To him, ‘home’ had been the garage, the AC cockpit, the thrill of combat - except, that wasn’t quite right either. Those had been moments where he was fulfilling his use, and so felt relief and the anxious need to excel so that he remained needed, desired for his functionality. That wasn’t ‘home’, but it was the closest approximation he had. 

What about before you came to Rubicon? You spent a year with Walter and the other Hounds before then, didn’t you? Wasn’t that home to you, for a while?

C4-621 wasn’t discussing that. 

Raven…

He turned his focus outwards to divorce himself more from that potential topic. “Ziyi, can I ask a question?”

“...what is it?”

Ziyi sounded wary, almost, like she was braced for something. C4-621 puzzled over it for a moment before brushing it aside. “Why do you stay on Rubicon? Wouldn’t it be easier to move away? This planet doesn’t sustain human life very well, after all.”

“What is it with you randomly starting these heavy topics out of nowhere?” Ziyi complained after a taut pause. “Is this what you and Rusty talk about all the time?”

“No. We talk about other things, like our distrust in each other.” 

“You two are so fucking weird,” Ziyi sighed. “Well, obviously, the reason why we haven’t just simply moved away is because this is our home. It doesn’t belong to Earth and their PCA jackals, and it doesn’t belong to the corporate dogs either. If we leave, it’s like saying we willingly relinquish our claim over it. We don’t. This planet is ours, and it’ll be ours long after those corporate vipers all eat each other alive.”

“So, spite,” C4-621 concluded. 

“...you really don’t understand normal human things, do you?” Ziyi said disdainfully. “Haven’t you ever had a home? Family? People you’re actually loyal to and not just the credits they give you?”

“I’m loyal to my handler.”

“From what I hear that’s a necessity for a guy like you,” Ziyi drawled. “Outside of your handler. Anyone else? At all? Before Rubicon? Or have you always been a selfish loner mercenary, willing to stomp down on the neck of the oppressed for your next paycheck?”

There was Ayre, but C4-621 knew better than to mention her. “Is there any other kind of mercenary in the galaxy?”

“So, yes, basically,” Ziyi said, but she sounded tired. “What is it with you guys…”

“...? You guys?”

“Rokumonsen wasn’t much different.” She paused, like she was debating on whether to say anymore, before continuing. “He came to this planet chasing the money, when wildcat mining was more of a thing before the corporations took over. He was willing to take any job for any fistful of credits, and where did it get him? Starving and half-feral, the idiot.”

Rokumonsen. Arena ID: 18-C. C4-621 had never personally fought him outside of the arena simulations, and that simulacrum of Rokumonsen was an AI, rather than the real thing. Yet, what information he had gleaned from those mock-up fights told him he was an adequate AC pilot, if a little overly reliant on lightning fast hit-and-runs. He had little defence against a very aggressive opponent faster than him or quicker on the draw. 

“I was just an MT pilot at the time and our orders were pretty strict when it came to independent mercenaries: no mercy,” Ziyi said grimly. “They were vultures, here to rob us of what little we had left. He wasn’t in any condition to fight, not with his AC barely powered and him half-crazy from starvation but…”

She sighed explosively. “He was so pathetic and desperate. Ugh. It just felt bad. So, I shared some of my rations with him and got him talking. About why he was here and stuff.”

“And now he’s loyal to the RLF,” C4-621 finished, “because you showed him kindness.” 

“Well- I mean, I wasn’t being kind,” Ziyi snapped. “I was being decent. Okay, he was a vulture, but he was just as desperate as us and, well… look, any decent person would do the same in my position! Well, probably not you, but you’re a vicious attack dog.” 

“If orders were to kill him, I would’ve killed him.”

“Right, exactly. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that Rokumonsen was like you. He was just chasing money, and wasn’t loyal to anyone or anything because he didn’t know any better. You don’t know any better.”

C4-621 wasn’t quite sure what point Ziyi was trying to make. Was she trying to say that the RLF taking him in, housing him, feeding him, should be enough to make him loyal to them? Perhaps in a transactional way, but that’s all. C4-621’s heart was closed as tightly as a vice, refusing to tie himself in that way to anyone else except Walter. He had done more for him than anyone else had done in his life, and for that… for that…

Ah. Maybe he wasn’t that much different from Rokumonsen at all. 

“Walter saved me,” C4-621 said abruptly. “He’s cared for me in his own way. I owe him my life. That’s why I’m loyal. It’s not out of necessity.”

“...hm.” Ziyi let out a small noise of understanding. “I guess you do kind of get it.” 

If he thought of Rubicon as something to akin to Walter, that though it was harsh and demanding, it still cared for you in its own inscrutable way… then yes, C4-621 sort of understood, perhaps, why the Rubiconians stayed instead of leaving - that and ample spite, refusing to give ruined ground to the likes of Earth. C4-621 understood that too.

But still, there came a point where one had to admit the futility of the situation. That’s why C4-621 was here, passively obeying the RLF rather than hijacking BASHO to jet towards the Factory. He knew where it was, thanks to Ayre’s careful snooping of the RLF databases over the last few days, and he was confident in his ability to break through its heavily guarded perimeter and lay waste to whatever stood in his way. The only snarl was actually securing Walter, and the lack of a viable exit plan - which resulted in mission failure every time C4-621 ran this hypothetical situation through his mind. 

Mission failure was unacceptable… it’d be a futile waste of resources, and his life. It burned him to accept it, but accept it he must. He had to remain with the RLF until he was in a better position to rescue Walter, even if by then it was too late. To charge off on his own would be futile. Acceptance. The RLF hadn’t yet hit that stage in regards to Rubicon. 

They cannot save it. The corporations were too powerful, and with the PCA ousted from the board, the UEG will not take this slap in the face lying down. They’ll retaliate, harshly, whether or not Arquebus were chased off the planet. They’ll be furious. That was why… that was why- why, with Luyten, that was why, after Luyten, that was why-

Rubicon was a lost cause. The RLF didn’t accept the futility of their mission. Rusty threw away everything he’d built for himself on a hopeless dream. Even C4-621, with new context and understanding, couldn’t really follow the logic process for the whole thing. 

“...maybe, but I know when to cut my losses too,” he finally said. The words, even with the softening effect of the Siri Voice, came out dispassionately blunt. “I can’t save Walter by myself, but by the time the RLF can help me rescue him, it’ll likely be too late.”

“...probably. Those who go through the Factory come out crazy or dead.”

“So it’s a hopeless cause,” C4-621 finished dully. “But the RLF is the best chance I have, so here I am.”

“Here you are.”

Silence rumbled between them, BASHO’s thrumming boosters comforting white noise against the way the AC’s frame sighed and creaked beneath its armoured weight. Even Ayre was quiet, her presence feeling almost distracted and partially faded from her inattention. It made C4-621 feel curiously alone in that moment, detached from the world around him as he realised that he really was just chasing after a pipe dream from lack of anything else to focus on. 

There was his promise to Ayre, of course, a far more realistic dream that didn’t have much of a time limit on to achieve, but after that… 

“Hey.”

C4-621 jerked slightly, not realising how deep he had sunk into his own thoughts. 

“Let me make something clear,” Ziyi said. Her voice was gruff. “I don’t trust you at all. You’re an independent mercenary that’s killed as many of us as you have corporate dogs, and I’m pretty sure that once you’ve got your handler back, you’re going go right back to killing us without a shred of hesitation or remorse. But.”

She sighed gustily, making a few abortive noises that trailed off into incoherent mutters. After a full minute of this, she gritted out: “You should keep your options open. Like Rokumonsen did. He was once as callous as you, and now he’s… fine. You know. Trusted and happy where he is. A bit weird but, I don’t think any AC pilot is normal around here.”

C4-621 said nothing. 

“Uncle sees something in you. See’s some kind of potential, and for all of Rusty’s stupid waffling he must do too. You don’t get how ruthless he is. If he thought you were irredeemable or not worth the effort, he would’ve just killed you there and then on the ice fields, instead of making you our problem.”

“...you want me to be like Rokumonsen,” C4-621 finally said, something indefinable settling in his stomach. He understood the transactional nature of his and Flatwell’s arrangement, but- “You want me to feel indebted to your kindness and become loyal to the RLF.”

“No. I want you to finish your business and get the fuck off my planet,” Ziyi said curtly. “But I also know that your business is tied with whatever shady shit your handler was up to, and if he’s dead then that means you’ve got nothing else, right?”

“...yes.”

“Then keep your options open. Don’t put all your eggs in one fucked up basket.” She paused. “Or go kill yourself if your handler turns up dead so you die with him. I really don’t care, so long as you’re no longer a threat to us.”

It was blunt. It was so callously and refreshingly blunt. C4-621 couldn’t help it. He- he laughed. 

The Siri Voice laughed, that is, picking up on his amusement and verbalising it clumsily. The flat, evenly spaced “ha, ha, ha” gave it an incredibly sarcastic quality, though, but Ziyi didn’t take offence to it judging by her snort. 

“The hell was that?”

“A laugh,” C4-621 said. “I appreciate your honesty.”

“You weren’t supposed to appreciate it, scavenger mutt. You’re supposed to be insulted or intimidated.”

“Rusty and Flatwell have been confusing to figure out,” C4-621 continued like she hadn’t spoken. He ignored her harrumph too. “They hide their intentions behind their words, and keep faking things. I know where I stand with you. If you could get away with it, you’d kill me, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, yeah. You’re dangerous and likely to stab us in the back the moment you think it’d help your handler,” Ziyi drawled. Strangely, there was little judgement in her voice. She was very matter-of-fact. “The only reason I’m playing along with all of this, is because I trust Uncle, and he said to… give you a chance. So. Here. I’m giving you a chance, giving you advice on how to not be such an immoral dog, and telling you to sort your life out. Don’t expect me to wear kid gloves like Rusty or Uncle.” 

C4-621 processed this for a moment.

“So, because you trust Flatwell, you trust his orders regarding me, despite your own misgivings,” he murmured. 

What a tangled weave trust was… but he could understand that way of thinking. He trusted whoever Walter had told him to trust, after all - which had been no one, admittedly, but if he had, C4-621 would’ve trusted them without question. 

“Yeah. Uncle’s a bit stupid sometimes - case in point - but he knows people, so… I mean, there must be something good about you somewhere. Or, he thinks that, I guess.”

C4-621 stared intently at the blinking blue dot in the horizon, marvelling over Flatwell’s surprising naivety. They had spoken so little before his capture, only occasional conversations within mission briefings, and all business. Unless-

…

Unless his opinion had been shaped by Rusty, who had plenty of interaction with him. Arquebus had liked pairing him and Rusty together, recognising the rapport they had, and likely wishing to have him become biased towards their job offers. Out of everyone on Rubicon, Rusty knew him best behind Walter and Ayre - it was why his betrayal had hurt so badly, had surprised him so much, even though retrospect told him he was stupid to be so shocked by it. 

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that possibility though. How could Rusty distrust him, yet sing his praises to Flatwell? Or at least, be positive enough for Flatwell to think there was something salvageable within the fucked up mess that was C4-621? It was confusing. He didn’t get his actions. He didn’t know why he cared so much, all while staring at him with such intense scrutiny and wariness. 

Ziyi’s blunt hostility was much more welcome. He understood that. He understood someone hating him and wanting him dead. There wasn’t much room for misunderstandings there. 

“And Rusty thinks you can be good too, though he’s probably thinking more with his- er, whatever. Anyway.” Ziyi cleared her throat. “Don’t get me wrong. The second I think you’re gonna backstab us or become a threat, I’ll kill you without hesitation. Got it?”

See. No room for misunderstanding. 

“Yes,” C4-621 said. 

“Good. I’m glad we understand each other.”

“Yes.” And, with that important business out of the way: “We’re not far from our objective. What do you want our plan of attack to be?”

Ziyi, to her credit, immediately snapped into mission mode. “We’ll just charge in. According to these coordinates, it’s some old radio relay station in the middle of nowhere. I’d be surprised if we can even see parts of it sticking out of the snow. So, there’s not gonna be any cover for us to skulk behind, and Uncle’s been gone long enough as is.”

“I see. So if an enemy is present, we’ll use blitzkrieg tactics, then?”

“Blizz- wha? The fuck is that?”

“Hard and fast,” C4-621 clarified. “It’s a word derived from the German language to mean ‘lightning-”

“I get it! Geeze, don’t pull out ancient lingo to make yourself sound smart. It’s rude.”

C4-621 said nothing. 

“But yeah. We’ll rush in, kill whatever corporate dogs are in our way, and try to pick up Uncle’s trail if he’s moved on.” Ziyi clicked her tongue. “Which is a possibility… Uncle seems to think he’s not as important as he is. Knowing him he’s probably ass deep in enemy territory collecting intel, completely oblivious to how everything will fall apart without him.”

“For someone you trust implicitly, you don’t seem to trust him to take care of himself.”

“Because he doesn’t take care of himself! He stretches himself way too thin and seems to think he’s some spry thirty year old,” Ziyi complained. “He’s so dumb! He’s smart but he’s dumb! It drives me crazy! I’m gonna tie him to his chair and ground him for a month when we drag him back home…”

Who was the subordinate and who was the leader here? “I see. Good luck with that…”

The conversation lapsed there, but the communications channel remained open between them. With the distance rapidly closing between them and their objective, C4-621 began combat preparations: he unlocked the ammunition feed to his weapons, activated his FCS, and initiated a preliminary area scan for any active infrared signature or IFF pings.

It took just under a second for the scan to finish and for C4-621 to process the data gleaned from it. Ziyi was right, there was a radio relay station up ahead, but it was still an active emission, curiously enough. When he opened up a second communication channel and tried to tune to its frequency, however, all he got was incomprehensible static. No viable data or connection available. 

It doesn’t seem to be in use… 

Yes, but strange how it was functioning at all, if it was just a surviving remnant of Pre-Fires Rubicon. C4-621 set it aside as unimportant, though, closing the second comms channel and shifting his attention to the horizon. The ground was sloping upwards into a squat hill, and he and Ziyi cut the output of their boosters, letting their ACs slow to a rolling halt on the hill’s summit. 

The radio relay was only just visible, most of it buried beneath layers of frozen snow and permafrost. Only the radio tower and its topmost floor could be seen, the windows long since blown inwards and filling the interior with snow, several satellite dishes and antennas dangling from the tower from their cords, the metal rusted through in patches. Whenever the cutting wind blew, the entire structure creaked and groaned, the tower swaying slightly and causing the dangling satellites and antennas to gently knock against the metal beams in deep, echoing thuds. 

C4-621’s attention was fixed higher, however. There, at the very top of the tower, was a satellite dish that looked comically pristine compared to the rusted hulk it was bolted onto. That was the source of the emission. 

It’s brand new. Someone installed that recently. 

Huh. Maybe it was important after all…

“Hey, Atoll. Look.”

C4-621 turned away from the radio relay tower at Ziyi’s prompting. YUE YU’s arm was pointing down the hill, a little to the west of the facility, where something was just visible amongst the white snow - something dark grey and… 

That’s an Arquebus LC.

“Vespers,” C4-621 said. 

Ziyi made a scornful noise and stomped down the hill. C4-621 followed her, BASHO’s legs leaving deep gouges through the soft snow. 

“Looks like Uncle walloped ‘em good,” Ziyi observed once they drew level with the wreckage. It was coated in a layer of frost and snow, but the fact that it was still visible meant that it was new - at least within a few hours. “Let’s see, these bastards usually move in pairs. Where’s the second one…”

It took a bit of hunting, but they found the second wreckage a little further west, the snow churned up and blackened in parts. As Ziyi jeered at the wreckage, even giving it a good boot, C4-621 found himself drawn to the strange ground markings. At a glance, it’d be easy to dismiss them as the result of a skirmish between two mechs - most likely Flatwell and these LCs - but… something about them niggled.  

He had fought Flatwell twice: a simulacrum of him in the Arena, and the real deal in the Depths. Both times Flatwell had a preference for gaining altitude over his opponent - a preference that had actually worked against him last time, due to the confined space and Rusty accidentally running into his sightlines. The Arquebus LCs also held a preference for aerial combat, which meant that the only ground markings should be from missed shots or blast marks from wayward missiles. 

Instead, these ground markings were wide and continuous, like tracks from a tank. Except those usually come in pairs, but these were singular, with very wide… turns…

Wait. Raven, are these…?

C4-621 shifted his attention to the LC wreckage. Despite the kicking Ziyi gave it, it hadn’t moved much from its spot. The LC had clearly suffered from an internal detonation - either a denial protocol to prevent it from falling into another’s hands, or the generator had spontaneously exploded. Considering the type of generator the LCs used, that would only happen if the generator experienced a sudden, crushing force - like from a pile bunker spike or… getting run over…

“What’re you doing?” Ziyi asked as C4-621 crouched down next to the wreckage. “Trying to extract data?”

“No. I’m investigating.” 

C4-621 gently brushed away the snow and narrowed his eyes when he got a good look at the state of the metal. While some of it was melted and warped from the heat of its internal detonation, it wasn’t enough to conceal what had been the killing blow: the hull had jagged gouges torn out of it, splitting it open or just plain ripping it apart, like the mech had been fed through an industrial scrapper. C4-621 was willing to bet that the pilot didn’t even get a chance to eject, judging by how the Core was completely dented inwards too. Was probably crushed on impact.

So, unless Flatwell had picked up an MT scrapping tool and some tank treads since parting ways with them, it was likely someone or something else had destroyed these mechs. Something big. Something heavy. Something armed with a serrated blade strong enough to rip apart military grade steel like it was flimsy wood. Something like… 

Oh no.

“Hey, are you done?” Ziyi asked impatiently. “Uncle clearly isn’t here, so we should move on. He probably kept going after wrecking these corporate dogs-”

“Flatwell didn’t destroy these,” C4-621 interrupted. BASHO stood back up, its head turning as it scanned the surrounding area again. They were alone, thankfully, but he could see where the tracks were headed: west. Unerringly west. “But you’re right that we should move on. It’s likely they’re pursuing him.”

“Huh? What? Who?”

C4-621 ignored her. Marking out the tracks on his HUD, he set off at a swift boost, kicking up snow and steam in his wake. If it was what he suspected, then Flatwell was in more danger than assumed. Time was of the essence.

“Goddammit- who?! Don’t go all mysterious on me, Atoll!”

“Keep up and you’ll find out,” C4-621 said. 

Ziyi cursed at him, but his sensors picked up YUE YU hurrying after him, the AC’s combustion generator straining a little to keep up with his pace. He didn’t let up his speed, his gaze fixed on the tracks that were slowly fading beneath the ice fields’ continuous wind and snow. They had a few hours before these tracks would disappear, and then…

Well. 

They better hope they found Flatwell before then, let’s leave it at that.

Chapter Text

The horizon was turning a dusky shade of pink by the time Flatwell reached the coordinates. 

Snow and steam plumed at TSUBASA’s feet as it landed heavily next to the dilapidated radio relay station, the building only partially visible from beneath decades of snow and permafrost. Only its tower and topmost floor had escaped a frozen burial, a dull, metallic clanging echoing eerily across the ice fields from its dangling cables and antenna bumping against rusted steel beams. 

Flatwell recalled this radio relay station from before the Fires. It’d been one of the checkpoints on some long, lonely patrol that young Flatwell - fresh from training and the mandatory augmentations - had found agonisingly boring to endure. He still remembered that route from Enlil’s now burnt out military base; winding along the various radio relays between Coral refineries, seeing the pink blush of dawn rise between the Coral extraction platforms and cast long, dark shadows along the pale tundra, passing by fellow pilots on guard duty at the wells, or operators stuck on long shifts at the radio relays…

…

…everyone had hated it. It’d been tedious in its monotony and gruelling in its length, normally doled out to the green recruits or those under punishment detail. Flatwell, as the youngest and greenest recruit there, had become intimately familiar with that much hated route, yet time had a funny way of putting things in perspective, didn’t it? Strange how he missed it so intently now, that long, dull yet beautiful patrol route.

Flatwell looked about himself and found his surroundings unrecognisable from fifty years ago. This radio relay had been situated out in the middle of nowhere - many operators considering it a dead end assignment - but it hadn’t been surrounded on all sides by unrelenting snow and ice. The tundra around it use to bloom in vivid autumnal colours: rusty reds, burnish orange, yellow-greens, hardy grasses and sedges as far as the eye could see, the flat horizon occasionally broken up by a herd of what had been colloquially known as ‘stilt-deers’: short-necked mammals that looked like a bizarre cross between a giraffe and a stag. They were fairly placid, unless startled, and they would walk slowly across the tundra in vast herds…

None of that, now.

Snow, snow, and more snow. No colourful plants sprawling across the horizon, no stilt-deers plodding along the tundra, no tired yet eager for gossip operators willing to exchange a few good biscuits for some cigarettes, no interstellar craft soaring overhead, no vehicles driving between settlements, no comrades to tease him on his return, to ask how his “long walk” was… none of that, now.

Flatwell used to hate it, that life. Trapped in a one-sided contract, subjugated to augmentations he never really consented to, champing at the bit to escape Rubicon and make a name for himself as some hotshot AC pilot in the big wide galazy - god, just thinking back to that time made him feel a mix of embarrassment and shame. Young Flatwell had no idea what he had. No idea how much he’d ache and hurt with the loss of Rubicon. His cares had been so mundane and narrow-minded… but he’d been young and stupid, and the Fires made him grow up fast. Too fast.

“…I’m getting old,” he chuckled, exasperated at his own melancholy. He found himself sliding into such moods more and more often nowadays, caught up in thinking about how things used to be… he didn’t have time for that. He had a world to liberate, after all.

He refocused on the task at hand. Turning away from the featureless horizon, Flatwell inspected the half-buried radio station, pacing a slow, thoughtful circle around its ancient tower.

It looked unassuming - always had been, too be honest. The tower had been the only notable landmark about it, being quite tall to achieve a line-of-sight connection with the eastward Coral extractor platforms (that had long since collapsed, lost to snow and time). Most of the tower’s satellite dishes and antennas were wrecked, either rusted to uselessness or torn from the tower to dangle by half-rotten wires, and yet…

Curiously, Flatwell tweaked TSUBASA’s communication suite. It took a bit of fine-tuning and testing, but he managed to snag a whisper of a signal. It was garbled, fizzled with static, and almost incomprehensible, but Flatwell recognised the garbled voice, somewhat: this station’s head operator, whose name was lost to Flatwell’s memory entirely.

“Code Apep… ini-zzzt-ed… all units to be -zzzzt!- prepare for ground -zzzzzt!- ombarment underw-zzzzt! Code Apep… ini-zzzzt-ed… prepare f -zzzzzt!”

A recording, a ghost of Rubicon crying its meaningless words to no one. Flatwell leaned back in his cockpit seat, listening to the recording drone on mindlessly. The operator sounded calm. He wondered if it had been broadcast before the Fires had really hit, before they realised just how apocalyptic things were. The Fires had taken a few minutes to really catch, after all…

He wondered where the broadcast was coming from, though. This radio station was just a stepping stone, a relay mindlessly slinging a sent message out into the emptiness of the ice fields. With the state of its tower, it shouldn’t be able to receive or send anything, but…

Flatwell fixed TSUBASA’s ocular feeds to the top of the radio tower. Past the snarled tangles of wire and broken metal, he spied something at the very top: a pristine satellite dish and an unknown box bolted onto the side. 

He refocused on the recorded message still droning mindlessly over the comms. It took a bit of tweaking, but slowly, slowly, he began to realise that the garbled static and noise wasn’t time and interference slowly eating away at a tragic snapshot, it was obfuscation. Encrypted data was nestled within this aimless message, tucked away in plain sight. It made sense. No one would pay much mind to an ancient, automated message like this… 

Interesting. 

“You enjoy hiding in plain sight, don’t you?” Flatwell murmured. “Well, it makes sense. It’s the last place anyone looks.”

And he had his suspicions on who this cunning sneak actually was. His mind had chewed over the mystery during the whole flight here, the few puzzle pieces he had assembling into a truly disturbing picture. Who on Rubicon would have the resources to construct mechs with advanced cloaking technology right under the corporations’ and the PCA’s noses without being discovered? Who on Rubicon would have the time and resources to cobble together an ominous project involving Coral without anyone catching on? Who on Rubicon could slither beneath everyone’s notice while keeping a close eye on their business, undetected? Who on Rubicon could possibly do that in plain fucking sight?

It was obvious in hindsight, embarrassingly so.

“But you’ve slipped up, finally.” Flatwell began priming TSUBASA’s electronic warfare suite, determined to extract what little encrypted data he could before the sneak caught on - if they hadn’t already. “Let’s see what-”

His HUD pinged. Incoming craft.

“...that was faster than expected,” he muttered, reluctantly disconnecting his electronic warfare suit. He examined the read out his HUD spat out, his brow furrowing at the information it gave him: two unknown craft were travelling in a westerly direction, several miles out. They weren’t directly heading towards his position, like he initially assumed. Their arrival was probably incidental…

“Arquebus, then. But why’re they out here? There’s nothing for them…” he trailed off when the craft abruptly diverted course. Now they were heading towards him. Understandable. If his sensors caught them, then theirs must’ve done the same. 

Not the right emissions for an AC, so probably more of those LCs. Not an issue. Flatwell had been wrecking those ‘advanced mechs’ the moment they came off the PCA’s production line. Arquebus’s inexperienced MT pilots was also a severe handicap for those LCs that couldn’t be overlooked either. It really made Flatwell question the Vespers’ decision-making as of late. Why deploy mechs your pilots were inexperienced with en-mass? If it was to field test them, they’d skipped more than a few stages…

But whatever, it worked to Flatwell’s advantage, and he wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. So, he gently boosted TSUBASA atop of the radio station’s flat roof, rather than moving to intercept, priming TSUBASA’s combat mode but not yet activating it.

The two dots on the horizon slowly took form as they rapidly approached. They were LCs, as he predicted, and they were travelling in flight configuration - must’ve been crossing quite the distance at some speed, then. Curious. The nearest Arquebus base was… well, quite a ways away, actually, and they wouldn’t send two LCs out into the wilderness for no good reason. 

Hunting for Raven, maybe?

As he mused over the mystery of it all, the LCs drew close enough to shift out of flight configuration, their boosters flaring as they came to a sharp halt atop of a squat hill that overlooked the radio station. The air hazed slightly around the mechs’ shoulders, wisps of steam as the boosters rapidly cooled, and their long, bulky plasma rifles were held up threateningly - not quite aiming at Flatwell, but clearly ready to be brought to bear at a moment’s notice.  

“Identify yourself,” came the cold order over open comms. 

Flatwell studied them. He was of two minds: kill them and be done with it, or satisfy his curiosity. If this was any other time, he would’ve just attacked them without much thought, but with the Ghost Mechs, these coordinates in that transporter, the encrypted data nestled in that lonely broadcast… their presence here seemed oddly coincidental.

“We won’t ask again!”

Flatwell didn’t believe in coincidences. 

“It’s a bit worrisome that you have to ask me that,” he drawled, packing as much obnoxiousness as he could into those words. “My transponder is active. Maybe check your IFF logs? If you know how, that is. I’m sure you’re still getting used to those stolen mechs of yours.”

“S-Shut up! We know how to check our IFF logs!” the pilot blustered, not quite covering up his embarrassment. “Er, hey, Jameson. Check the, er, logs. I’ll keep an eye on this asshole, make sure he doesn’t suckerpunch us.”

“Uh, sure… um, which part is that under? The PCA formatted their HUD differently to BAWS…”

“Are you seriously asking that on open comms?!”

“Oh shit, that wasn’t on private?”

Flatwell bit the inside of his cheek, amused despite himself. After a minute of hissed problem solving, the second pilot - Jameson - managed to find his IFF logs and declared in proud relief: 

“AC TSUBASA, registered under callsign Middle Flatwell!”

“Flatwell?” the first pilot repeated. “Isn’t that the-” 

He stopped. 

“...the de facto leader of the Liberation Front?” Flatwell finished for him with mock sweetness. “Why, yes! It is! I’d say it’s a pleasure, but sadly, I have a bias against you corporate dogs for obvious reasons.”

“Oh… we’re fucked, Robbie,” Jameson said with a despairing kind of resignation. 

The first pilot - Robbie - maintained an impressive, albeit foolish, bravado. “What do you mean ‘fucked’? We’ve hit the jackpot. If we bring back this Rubiconist’s head, we’ll get a big payout from HQ.”

Jameson didn’t respond. His silence spoke volumes. 

“Ignoring that delusional dream for a moment,” Flatwell said. “You’re both quite far from your outposts. I’m a little curious as to what you’re up to out here. Did Arquebus send you out on an errand?”

“None of your business,” Robbie sneered. “We can go wherever we please, anyways. We own this planet now! We beat Balam and the PCA, and you Rubiconists can’t stand up to the might of the Arquebus Group now that we have the PCA’s advanced technology!”

“Robbie,” Jameson said tightly. 

“Interesting declaration. You do realise that us ‘Rubiconists’ have been fighting against the PCA’s ‘advanced technology’ for decades, right?” Flatwell asked, genuinely curious on how much - or how little - Arquebus’s rank and file knew. “Those LCs are actually old news to us. They seem impressive at first, but they’ve got a lot of flaws that the PCA were never quite able to buff out.”  

Finally, Robbie seemed to waver slightly. “What… what do you mean?”

“The armour is a lot thinner around the generator casing and, as you know, the generator is a highly experimental energy-cycling type. I don’t really know the ins and outs of the science behind it, but it's very reactive to sudden decompression. Meaning, if you hit the generator casing just right with a kinetic or explosive round, you can make those mechs ionise like a grape in a microwave.”

Flatwell didn’t hide the smile in his voice as he finished sweetly: “I’ve gotten very good at consistently doing that.” 

The two LC pilots said nothing for a long moment. Maybe they had discovered how to activate private comms and were furiously arguing with each other. Maybe they were contemplating the choices that had led them to this moment, and how it was going to end in their messy demise. Whatever the case, Flatwell patiently waited, gently tapping his finger against his control stick’s trigger. 

“Uh, Flatwell…” Jameson finally said, the more realistic and level-headed of the two. “Our meeting here is, um, coincidental. We’re not deployed against Rubiconist interests, and have no intention of, uh, doing anything against them on this sortie. We’re no threat to you and have no intention of being a threat- right now, that is. Currently.” 

“Really.”

“Yes. Um. In fact, we’re pursuing rival corporate assets,” Jameson continued, anxiety leaching into his voice. It made Flatwell smile. “Balam, in fact. Uh, from one of our re-education centres. They’re nothing to do with you and, um, in fact, it’d benefit the Rubiconists for us to recapture them, to prevent them from causing trouble for you. So, perhaps we can part ways here, peacefully…”

“I see,” Flatwell said lightly, all while he immediately turned that titbit of information over and over in his head. This was very far out from the nearest re-education centre. Miles upon miles, in fact. Not easily traversed on foot, not if Arquebus had deployed mechs to hunt them down, so that implied this ‘Balam escapee’ had managed to steal a vehicle of some kind, or a mech. 

His mind flashed back to that moment with Raven, where he had confessed to leaving Michigan alive. 

Well, if anyone could manage an escape from Arquebus captivity and steal a mech while he was at it, it’d be Hell on Four Legs Michigan. But Flatwell would’ve thought he’d be at the Factory already… unless he was being held somewhere first? Arquebus did like being efficient to the point of inefficiency, especially with their re-education victims. They liked to move them in bulk since it saved on fuel, so-

…

So… if Michigan had escaped, he probably did it when escape was at its most successful: while being moved between locations. If that was moving him from a re-education centre to the Factory, as part of a bulk transport, there was a chance that he might’ve been with a certain handler…

… 

Hm. Well, that would complicate things with Raven, wouldn’t it? Best to try and tie up that loose end discreetly while he had the chance. 

“Well, I’m actually very interested to know about this Balam prisoner,” Flatwell purred. “Why would I want them recaptured when killing them would be more advantageous to me?”

TSUBASA’s head tilted fractionally as he added: “In fact, it’s a little odd that Arquebus would deploy a hunting party for an escaped prisoner at all. The ice fields are more than enough to kill any lost wanderer, mech or no, and Arquebus are notorious for cutting corners and penny pinching. What’s one dead Balam employee in the grand scheme of things, hm? Definitely not worth the fuel required to send two LCs after them.”

No response. The LCs were very still, likely realising their misstep in trying to pull the wool over Flatwell’s eyes. He’d be insulted if he weren’t so amused. 

“So, this Balam employee must be valuable in some way… more valuable alive, that is. Now, considering the Redguns are mostly UEG military washouts or penal battalions, that leaves a very, very short list. A list of one, in fact.”

“No, it’s- we just have, uh, quotas to meet,” Jamesons stammered. “We get a bonus if we hit the mark and, and this one is all we need to, uh, achieve that-”

Okay, now that was insulting. 

“Quotas. Sure.” Flatwell didn’t bother to hide the cold disdain in his voice. “Well, you won’t be reaching that quota. I’ve got all I needed out of you. So-”

In a blink, TSUBASA flipped into combat mode, his FCS latching onto the two LCs. The two mechs immediately sprung into the air, their boosters firing as they frantically swung their plasma rifles up to bear. Flatwell’s HUD beeped. Target locked. 

“-I’ll have to pass on that ‘peacefully parting ways’ suggestion.” 

Missiles screamed out of his shoulder weapon, one flying towards Jameson and two towards Robbie. As expected, the LCs sprung apart, lighting up from the flares discharging from their backs, a mix of smoke and steam hazing the air. In that moment of distraction, TSUBASA leapt up, up, up, high into the sky as he locked onto Jameson with both weapons, the ETSUJIN and RANSETSU barking as he unloaded their magazines onto the LC’s head.

“Ack- shit! Shit!”

“James! Hold on!”

Unexpectedly, Robbie charged at him. The LC was speedy, its lighter armour and frame giving it an agility that was lacking in the bulkier MTs that BAWS and the PCA deployed. Still, TSUBASA was faster, and a simple quick-boost to the left and a swift weapon swap between his ETSUJIN and LITTLE GEM let him unload a grenade shell into Robbie’s flank. 

Here’s a little fact about the LCs: the alloy used in their construction made them exemplary at deflecting and enduring energy projectiles, which was considered the biggest threat on Rubicon. Institute relics still prowled this planet, their decayed AI identifying everything as foe and spewing out their lasers and plasma indiscriminately. This advantage came at a cost of its kinetic defences, however: the alloy was more brittle, thinner, and when hit with a concussive force like a kinetic round or an explosive shell-

Robbie’s LC veered in a wild, uncontrolled fall as the grenade shell blasted chunks of metal from its left shoulder. One arm rendered inoperable, Robbie managed to regain control of the LC, its left shoulder booster spewing black smoke. Flatwell didn’t get a chance to press the offensive, as Jameson rushed to his comrade’s defence, shooting a rapid salvo of plasma bolts at him. 

He backed off, maintaining altitude as Robbie and Jameson took up a defensive position closer to the ground. He understood what they were doing: distance was a good defence against kinetic rounds and the LITTLE GEM was too compacted along the barrel to let its grenade shell travel far. So long as the LCs had their flares, his missiles wouldn’t be much help either. 

Flatwell was too leery of closing the distance, however. If it was just one, yes, he’d take the risk, but the LCs hunted in pairs for a reason. Those plasma rifles will eat into TSUBASA’s armour like acid, and he didn’t want to cause too much damage to his AC on a simple reconnaissance. It’ll be tricky, but he could-

A nearby snowdrift exploded. 

“What the-!?” 

“Who-!?”

Flatwell was just as stunned as the two LC pilots, briefly freezing as something came charging out of the snow like a snarling beast. He only caught a glimpse of it: huge, jagged, like a sentient buzzsaw out of hell, its serrated teeth tearing up chunks of permafrost buried beneath the snow and flinging them violently aside. It was almost as tall as the LCs, and was moving at such speed that Jameson’s mech barely functioned as a speed bump when it crashed headlong into it. 

It was brutal - gruesome. Jameson’s screams were piercing and mangled over the comms as his LC was literally crushed beneath the weight of the thing. The snow obscured the worst of the carnage, a huge plume like the tail of a comet trailing after the invading attacker as it peeled off the mangled LC wreckage and continued its barrelling pace across the snow. 

“You- you bastard!”

Robbie. With a howl of fury, he fired his plasma rifle wildly, blind to the danger. From Flatwell’s elevated position, he saw how the bolts struck the thing’s rear… and simply splashed off of it, only melting the chunks of ice and snow the machine was throwing up in its wake. It did catch its attention, though, as it abruptly veered into a slow yet tight turn and allowed Flatwell to finally get a good look at the damn thing: 

It was a fucking construction mech. 

Or, rather, those HELIANTHUS autonomous mechs the Institute had made a huge fuss about: revolutionising the mining industry, or something like that. Flatwell had been stationed briefly at one of their stripmine testing sights when they’d been unveiled, had watched a bunch of them eat into the side of a cliff face and mindlessly swarm over anything ‘interesting’ to them like a shoal of mechanical piranhas. There’d been something off-putting about it, the instinct to swarm, to hunt as a pack. If it was an AI, the Institute had made it too clever for its mundane purpose. 

Case in point: the HELIANTHUS completed its turn and charged aggressively at Robbie, its serrated saws gouging into the permafrost and carving thick lines through the snow. The plasma bolts splashed off its hull harmlessly, and it looked as if it was going to mindlessly ram into Robbie when-

Robbie evaded at the last minute, no doubt anticipating the HELIANTHUS to fly past - but it didn’t. With an abruptness that was jarring in its unnaturalness, the HELIANTHUS slammed to a halt, using its unspent momentum to swing round, the hole in its centre glowing a bright, fiery crimson-

“AARGH!”

Gouts of Coral-infused flames spewed out like a jet engine. It engulfed Robbie’s LC instantly; the mech reeled back wildly, its hull glowing white and red-hot in parts, and the plasma rifle peeled off the LC’s arm in a sloughing lump of metal and circuity. When the HELIANTHUS lurched forwards, its serrated teeth carved gaping gouges through half-melted, military-grade steel, crushing and shredding the mech into nothing but scrap. 

Robbie’s screams were very short-lived, but no less horrific. 

“Damn,” Flatwell said blandly. “What a way to go.”

The HELIANTHUS wheeled off the crushed LC, its pace considerably slower than its explosive entrance. The construction mech likely had no idea he was here, being too high up to be caught by its very low-altitude scanners, but TSUBASA’s booster control was beginning to flash warning signs of overheating, indicating an inevitable landing - and thus detection. 

It should be fine. One HELIANTHUS was easy enough to deal with. If Flatwell recalled correctly, their hull was strong but brittle, much like the LC it just chewed through. If he angled his missile salvo right, he could blast it to pieces before it could cause him any harm - and it wasn’t as if it could fly, so TSUBASA would have no trouble running rings around this glorified buzzsaw. 

it’s not like the institute would give construction mechs actual weapons, Flatwell scoffed to himself, letting his FCS lock onto the meandering mech. It’ll spring to action the moment his missiles fired, but by then it’ll be too late. 

He cut his boosters the second he let off a salvo of missiles, angling TSUBASA’s fall to land - gently - atop of the radio station. He heard the high-pitched squeal of the HELIANTHUS’s rusted saws accelerating as it raced off, the missiles swooping after it, and lifted his LITTLE GEM bazooka. His FCS locked on, giving him targeting solutions. 

The HELIANTHUS will probably outpace the missiles, but while it was distracted with those, the mech will sail past and he can unload a grenade right into-

[BEEPBEEP!]

It was instinct, more than any conscious decision, that had Flatwell leaping upwards in a booster-enhanced jump - and not a moment too soon. The second he moved, another HELIANTHUS came roaring out of another snowdrift at such speeds that it managed to get a bit of air when it hit a small incline, sailing over the remains of the radio station and narrowly missing Flatwell by inches.

Understandably, Flatwell felt his pulse bolt up into the stratosphere from the near miss. “What- where the hell did you-?!” 

[BEEPBEEP!BEEPBEEP!BEEPBEEP!]

Flatwell was rarely rattled, especially in combat, but in that moment he certainly felt his heart give a few worried thumps at his HUD blinking with a sudden swarm of red. More incoming craft, almost half a dozen of those things crashing out of the snowAND-!

“Why did you give them missiles!?!?!” Flatwell yelped, forcing TSUBASA into a series of acrobatic yet reckless boosts and spins to dodge the veritable wall of missiles that came screaming up at him from the HELIANTHUS below. “Why does a construction mech need homing missiles?!”

The Institute relics didn’t answer him. As the last hostile missile went spiralling off into the distance, Flatwell managing to dislodge its lock at the last moment, he realised the predicament he was now in: the one HELIANTHUS had become six, and all were circling around the radio station like a pack of sharks, emitting rusty shrieks and guttural snarls from their ancient saws stubbornly chugging along. TSUBASA’s boosters hadn’t fully cooled before he’d taken flight and already Flatwell was getting the overheat warning light. 

“Fuck,” he said eloquently. 

In the brief handful of seconds he had to him, Flatwell quickly planned. He knew bad odds when he saw them, and the moment TSUBASA landed he’d be ripped to shreds by the HELIANTHUS swarming him. He remembered how fast they could move, how quickly they could descend on anything identified as scrap. TSUBASA’s light frame wouldn’t last a fraction of a second beneath that abuse. 

Only one thing for it. 

Flatwell didn’t wait for a precise lock on. He shot a salvo of missiles aimlessly down towards the pack before gunning into an assault boost while he still had altitude. He didn’t stop to watch where his missiles fell or if he hit anything: he was too busy getting the fuck out of dodge. 

He got maybe two kilometres before TSUBASA’s booster control automatically engaged, the temperature light blinking a very angry red. Flatwell angled his AC to land in a skating boost that didn’t reduce its speed, snow kicking up in a half-melted cloud as he continued racing across the ice fields. On his HUD, six red dots aggressively pursued him, and even over the roar of his boosters and the groan of TSUBASA’s hull, he could hear the damn things snarling after him, they were gaining so fast. 

Quick. Think. Location. Radio relay, patrol route, about ten miles out west there was- what was it- right, yes, the military scrapyard. Was pretty large. Sprawled about two miles wide. Had a massive fuck off wall surrounding it too. Yes. Those HELIANTHUS would be slowed by all the obstacles in their way, and he could give them the slip. Right. Ten miles, he can do tha- 

 [BEEPBEEP!]

TSUBASA quick-boosted forwards, narrowly avoiding getting crushed between two HELIANTHUS. In his periphery he saw them scream past him as the other four came snarling up his rear, boxing him in. His surroundings became nothing but a blur of white, plumes of snow and haze kicked up from the high-speed chase, half-blinding his ocular feeds. Irritably, Flatwell switched to thermal.

On his HUD, another wall of red sprang into violent life, accompanied by the increasingly shrill incoming alert. More missiles, not much room to manoeuvre, and the box the HELIANTHUS made with their serrated bodies squeezing smaller and smaller… 

It didn’t look good, but. 

This wasn’t Flatwell’s first hopeless situation.

TSUBASA erupted into a ground-launched assault boost, angled slightly upwards. Even while braced for it, Flatwell still flinched when TSUBASA crashed through the wall of missiles, integrity alerts screaming across his HUD as the AC’s entire frame rattled from strips of ablative armour being sheared off. He was practically blind for a handful of heart-stopping seconds, his booster controls snapping in once more and cutting off his assault boost before he really gained much altitude.

But it was enough.

Battered and half-charred, TSUBASA escaped the death box the HELIANTHUS had formed around him, and traded a few missiles to the face to avoid the rest of the fatal bulk. TSUBASA’s frame groaned in protest when its feet hit the snow, but its integrity held and it didn’t slow down, continuing its skating boost as the HELIANTHUS resumed their pursuit behind him.

What followed were the single most stressful five minutes of Flatwell’s life. The HELIANTHUS weaved and lunged for him, once more trying to trap him in a box between them, but Flatwell managed to escape every time before the noose was fully slung around his neck. But TSUBASA endured a death by a thousand cut:, the concussive blast of narrowly missed missiles, the occasional blade clipping him, the repeated hop-skips he was forcing his AC to go through despite the increasingly desperate temperature warnings it was bleating at him…

…but his luck held, and the scrapyard he’d been gunning for loomed high in the horizon, casting long, dark shadows across the snow. It was a complicated mess of abandoned extraction platforms, old military hardware, and concrete walls that towered almost ten times the height of TSUBASA - but more importantly, it was an obstacle that the HELIANTHUS wouldn’t be able to navigate quickly or nimbly.

Now or never.

“Alright, TSUBASA, just a little more,” he muttered, sweeping a quick glance across his HUD. The six HELIANTHUS were uncomfortably close, relentless in a way that only an untiring, unthinking AI could be, and Flatwell knew that if he fucked this next bit up, that’d be it. No second chances, just him unceremoniously turned into scrap in the middle of Rubicon’s frozen wasteland. Like he’d let that happen.

He deactivated TSUBASA’s safety protocols - temperature warnings, booster controls, all of it. He had a huge fucking wall to jump and he needed to do it in one, uninterrupted assault boost.

[BEEPBEEP!BEEPBEEP!BEEPBEEP!]

As if sensing their quarry was about to slip away from them, all six HELIANTHUS released a staggered launch of missiles, painting his HUD in a wall of aggressive red. The moment the first missile launched, however, TSUBASA erupted into a powerful, max-speed assault boost, the AC’s entire frame vibrating from the G-forces crushing against it - the inertia dampeners barely mitigated it. Flatwell felt all the air get punched out of his lungs.

[WARNING! UNSAFE TEMPERATURE LEVELS IN CORE BOOSTERS #1 AND #2]

TSUBASA rocketed upwards, only just outpacing the missiles pursuing it. Flatwell felt sweat bead his brow as he fought to keep his AC on target, knowing he needed to reach a certain zenith to hit the necessary altitude to jump over the scrapyard’s forbidding perimeter. The roar of the boosters started to hit a deafening pitch…

[WARNING! CRITICAL TEMPERATURE LEVELS IN CORE BOOSTERS #1 AND #2]

“C’mon, c’mon…” Flatwell panted. The lip of the wall was fast approaching, and he could feel TSUBASA start to struggle, a deep, metallic groaning building somewhere below his feet.

[WARNING! CRITICAL TEMPERATURE LEVELS IN CORE BOOSTERS #1-]

The AC rocked abruptly from a sudden detonation against its back. Flatwell cursed - [WARNING! CORE BOOSTER #1 OFFLINE!] - violently yanking his controls to commence an emergency upwards quick-boost to just about-

TSUBASA slammed into the wall, its upper body folding over the top of it as its one, functioning Core booster almost sent it hurtling right over it in an uncontrolled fall. Half-deafened by all the blaring warnings his deeply aggrieved AC was yelling at him, Flatwell cut his boosters and pathetically crawled onto the top of the wall itself, breathing hard.

[WARNING! CORE BOOSTER #1 OFFLINE! CRITICAL TEMPERATURE LEVELS IN CORE BOOSTER #2!]

“I know, I know.” Flatwell re-initiated the safety protocols, blinking sweat out of his eyes. He chanced moving TSUBASA enough to peer down the wall, and spotted the six HELIANTHUS at the base of it, moving in lost looking circles. It seemed their scanners could only go so high. Thank god.

He chanced a moment to slump in his seat and let out a breathless laugh of relief. He wasn’t out of the woods just yet, but he was definitely out of the jaws of deathly defeat. He affectionately patted TSUBASA’s main console, even if he had a feeling his AC didn’t like him that much right now.

“Well done, TSUBASA. You did good,” he praised. “Now then…”

With the HELIANTHUS pack on one side of the wall, Flatwell peered over the other side. It was a steep drop, and the floor was a disorganised and rusted maze of metal and military hardware. He could even see an abandoned ballistic missile down there, three times the length of TSUBASA. Was that live? He wouldn’t put it past the Institute. This scrapyard had been notorious for being extremely secretive, back in the day, and a focus of all kinds of rumours…

There weren’t any immediate threats he could see, though. After a bit of gauging, the frigid air helping to rapidly cool his remaining boosters, he had TSUBASA jump down, wincing as the AC jolted warningly with each pump of his boosters.

When he landed, its right leg immediately buckled, causing TSUBASA to sprawl awkwardly on its hands and knees. Flatwell sighed, but supposed he was fortunate that his AC was even able to move with all the abuse he put it through. FIRMEZA was not known for its durability, after all.

TSUBASA climbed gingerly onto its unsteady feet, turning its head to take in its surroundings. There was a strange sort of silence here; he couldn’t hear the HELIANTHUS on the other side of the wall at all, and even the wind was quiet. The only noise came from the grumbling of TSUBASA’s generator, and the creak and groans of its hydraulics as it started to walk. Everything else was cushioned, eerily isolated…

It gave this place a forbidden air that Flatwell didn’t like.

Well, he wasn’t planning on poking his nose into places it didn’t belong here. He just needed to traverse across it and leave out the other side, then make a very slow and cautious journey back to the Warrens. Rusty was no doubt worried sick about him, and he needed to get back before that silly boy decided to chase after him. He didn’t want to think how STEEL HAZE ORTUS would match up against six HELIANTHUS at once…

So he walked. TSUBASA’s scanners were still functional, but all the surrounding metal and… something else was causing intense interference. Even the compass was getting a little disorientated, spinning in dizzying circles as TSUBASA wandered deeper into the scrapyard, old military skeletons looming high over him.

The wall had protected it from a lot of the snow and ice, meaning none of it was buried. Flatwell saw old shells of mechs he’d never seen before lying abandoned beneath rotting corpses of military aircraft or twisted metal he couldn’t begin to guess the original shape of. They all seemed very dead, though - he had given one inert mech an experimental kick with TSUBASA’s foot, and it had remained very still and inactive.

Still, though, he got the sense of…

“Am I being watched?” he mumbled to himself, pausing at a ‘crossroads’ of sorts. He was vaguely aware that he travelling in the right direction - he could see the glow of the sun overhead between the stretching branches of bent steel beams and dangling cables - but his AC was thoroughly confused. Something was emitting a strong signal here. Some abandoned military project that the Institute didn’t see fit to deactivate before dumping it? Hopefully one that wasn’t going to spring out of the ground and try to murder him.

The back of his neck itched, though. He picked a route that seemed like it’d take him in the right direction, tapping his finger nervously against his control stick’s trigger. By now his HUD’s frequent warnings had died down to a sullen grumble, accepting that nothing was going to be done about TSUBASA’s heavily compromised hull integrity or burnt out boosters.

The path he took led him out into an open clearing of sorts. It looked like it had been a heavy heli-transporter landing port many decades ago, a place to unload scrap, but the concrete was long cracked and coated in a thin layer of ice, the stark red H faded beneath it. A wall ringed the entire thing, half-crushed vehicles, hollowed out tanks, and dismembered limbs from old mechs, and standing across from Flatwell was an AC.

A functioning AC.

For a long moment they simply stood and stared at each other. The unknown AC was a very impersonal silver, its LED lights glowing a soft turquoise. There were no markings, no emblems painted across its hull, and its weapons were unfamiliar to Flatwell - especially the huge, bulky rifle clutched in its right hand. TSUBASA’s HUD warned that a considerable amount of energy was being fed into that rifle - a dangerous amount.

Yet there were some things familiar about it… wait. It was the head. That head piece was the exact same as O’Keeffe’s current AC assembly. Flatwell only recognised it because he had stared at the back of it more times than he could count, when shadowing the few missions O’Keeffe attended on Rubicon-

“This area is out of bounds,” the unknown AC finally said. Her voice was placid, soft almost, with a very mild inflection that sounded oddly familiar. Flatwell couldn’t quite place it.

“Well, I’m not planning on sticking around,” Flatwell said carefully. The unknown AC hadn’t made any threatening moves, but his danger senses were all but screaming and waving around red flags. “I’ll be out of here soon enough. If you excuse me.”

To test the waters, TSUBASA took a step forwards. The unknown AC lifted her bulky rifle up a fraction in response.

“No, you won’t,” the unknown AC murmured. “Middle Flatwell, 13/C. Your mediocre skills in the arena had you allocated as a low-threat element, but it seems your middling rank belies your true skill. Not many pilots would’ve survived your situation - at least, not to the point where they become a liability.”

“What?” It took Flatwell a moment to process that, yes, this unknown AC had said with full seriousness that she used the arena rankings to gauge a pilot’s true skill- “You based your expectations on the arena? No one puts any real effort into that.”

The arena was something everyone had contributed to on Rubicon, but only because ALLMIND had insisted upon it as part of her terms of service. Many assumed it to be a holdover of whatever corporation had created her, harvesting user information to better shape advertisements and the like, yet Flatwell had never been comfortable with it. He did the bare minimum to establish a profile so he could use her ammunition catalogue function. He was pretty sure most people did that, with the exception of a few.

“It functions as a good ‘yard stick’,” the unknown AC said in an oddly defensive tone. “Though outliers occur occasionally. Yourself being a prime example.”

“Thanks, I think…” Flatwell mumbled. He was so bewildered, though, because- “But, I’m confused as to why you care so much. I don’t recognise you from the arena’s roster…”

Well, her AC’s transponder wasn’t emitting any kind of identity codes or even a placeholder name, but her AC was distinct enough to be recognisable at a glance. Aside from the head piece, Flatwell had never seem these frame parts before, and such uniqueness would definitely stand out amongst the long roster of independent mercs slumming it at the bottom of the rankings.

“…or your unique AC parts, rather,” he continued, keeping his tone slow and careful. “Experimental PCA tech? I’d ask if you were fielding untested ADD parts, but Arquebus wouldn’t have passed up painting their ugly logo all over that thing. Another third party, maybe?”

“…”

The unknown AC hefted her rifle, pointing it straight up. It wasn’t a comforting gesture - parts of its barrel retracted slightly, and it began to glow in parts, his HUD warning of a building energy. Well then.

“You’ve become a troublesome element,” the unknown AC said. Her voice was still mild, still pleasant, yet there was an off-putting flatness to it too. A puddle with barely any depth. “Your removal is regrettable, but not intolerable. It’s just unfortunate that you forced this decision due to your inconvenient… curiosity.”

It clicked.

“Wait… you’re part of that ‘Coral Release Project’, aren’t you?“ he blurted, looking at her in a new light. Her alien AC parts, her lack of transponder and identifying emblems or features… “The one who sent those ‘ghost mechs’ after Raven.”

The unknown AC tilted her head fractionally.

“…very troublesome,” she murmured.

Then her rifle swung down, Flatwell only managing to glimpse the blinding glow building along its barrel before it fired. He quick-boosted to the left, but the beam of energy it release ionised the air along its path so explosively the concussive force flung TSUBASA like a ragdoll against the rusted remains of a tank. The AC’s shoulder missile launcher was crumpled and the shoulder joint deformed to uselessness from the sheer force of the impact, leaving Flatwell briefly disorientated.

His AC was unresponsive, TSUBASA finally giving up the ghost from that last impact. Flatwell yanked on his controls, but the lightweight AC simply toppled onto the frozen ground, its HUD blinking with numerous warnings and malfunctions. From his prone position, he saw the unknown AC walk towards him leisurely.

“Get up, TSUBASA!” Flatwell hissed. TSUBASA’s leg twitched. “TSUBASA! Get up-!”

TSUBASA jolted from a solid impact. The unknown AC’s foot had slammed down onto its Core, pinning it in place. With an awful, sickening feeling, Flatwell watched as the unknown AC raised its left arm, deploying a brilliant laser dagger from its wrist.

“Don’t struggle,” the unknown AC said gently. “I dislike causing unnecessary pain. A direct hit to your cockpit will cause instantaneous death. You will feel nothing.”

“How kind of you,” Flatwell gritted out, “but you’ll pardon me for not going gently into the night.”

The unknown AC reared her arm back, dagger held high-

-just as TSUBASA wildly swung its right arm up and blindly shot its LITTLE GEM bazooka off at pointblank range.

“What-?!”

TSUBASA’s entire frame groaned from the force of the blast, and the unknown AC’s foot was thrown off his Core. Not that Flatwell could take advantage of that - TSUBASA remained stubbornly unmoving, its arm still stuck in that upraised position, the hydraulics locked out. A last, defiant fuck you to this nameless, unknown assassin that was going to achieve what fifty years of PCA and corporate occupation didn’t.

well, I had a good run, he thought with little emotion, weirdly calm as the smoke cleared, revealing the unknown AC mostly unharmed.

“…that was pointless,” the unknown AC said. She wasn’t mocking, though. If anything, she just sounded puzzled. After a pause, she stepped forwards again, and swung her leg out to violently kick TSUBASA’s extended arm.

Flatwell cringed at the jolt of sympathetic pain that nipped through the limb. TSUBASA’s right arm was snapped at the elbow, sending it - and its LITTLE GEM still clutched in its hand - sailing away out of sight. The unknown AC loomed over him, streaks of soot and pockmarks marring her otherwise clean, silvery hull. Flatwell felt a flutter of petty vindication at that.

“Don’t resist,” the unknown AC ordered, and lifted her laser dagger once more.

Flatwell didn’t close his eyes. He didn’t think about regrets or what ifs. He sat there in TSUBASA’s cockpit, peering up at the unknown AC through TSUBASA’s eyes, and thought: she’s oddly polite for an assassin.

It was an inane thought, really, yet at the same time it finally connected just what was so familiar about her cadence. It was a lightning stroke of brilliance, of critical thinking association only a disorganised human mind could make, at the worst possible time when it was actually kind of useless to realise it. He sat there, watching the laser dagger swing down, and thought: doesn’t she sound a lot like-

[BEEPBEEP!BEEPBEEP!]

Once more, Flatwell’s world was engulfed with smoke and the angry flashing of integrity warnings as twin powerful explosions smashed against the unknown AC’s flank, sending her lurching violently into the tank TSUBASA had crashed into earlier. Flatwell’s ears were ringing from the sheer impact of the explosions, but from his vantage point he couldn’t see the origin point.

But-

“STAY AWAY FROM UNCLE!”

Ziyi’s voice, furious and brimming with righteous rage, came charging into view, her shield deployed in a wall of unrelenting blue. The unknown AC had just peeled herself off the tank only to get bodyslammed full force by an angry, assault-boost assisted BASHO into it once more, a crackly, oddly wheezing noise seeping across open comms.

ah, karma, Flatwell thought blankly.

Another BASHO flew into view. As Ziyi single-handedly started beating the shit out of the unknown AC with her BASHO’s fists, the second BASHO - Raven, he realised - bent down and grasped onto the stump of TSUBASA’s amputated arm, dragging it away from the immediate combat zone.

“…thanks for the timely assist, Atoll,” Flatwell said. His tone was calm and bright, despite the way his heart was hammering so quickly he felt mildly sick. Near death experiences never got easier, no matter how many you had. “Remind me to buy you a drink later.”

“That’s not necessary,” Raven(?) spoke back, in a voice eerily similar to the unknown AC’s, but just different enough to be distinct. The cadence was flatter, more lifeless, more- ah. That voice module Rivers spoke about before must’ve worked then. “Hang tight. We’ll deal with the threat.”

“Her rifle is dangerous. It has a very large blast range,” Flatwell said hurriedly as Raven released TSUBASA and straightened up. “I don’t know what the rest of her loadout does, so be careful.”

“Acknowledged.”

Raven boosted out of view, leaving Flatwell only able to stare up at the sky above. It was pale pink, streaked with clouds, with the sun creeping towards its zenith. It was a deceptively tranquil view, to contrast the sound of explosive violence happening across the clearing, Ziyi’s passionate war cries echoing between the metallic walls ringing them.

Well, looked like Flatwell will get to live another day after all.

Barely.

Chapter Text

When C4-621 finally joined the fray, the unknown AC had overcome its bewildered surprise and was in the process of mounting its frustrated counterattack.

“This doesn’t concern you, Little Ziyi. Please depart the area before I’m forced to neutralise you,” Unknown said mildly while lashing out with its laser dagger as fast as a striking snake, the energy blade scouring a glowing red scar across YUE YU’s Core.

“Ack-! Shit!” Ziyi squawked. As Unknown moved in for another brutal thrust with its dagger, YUE YU’s pulse buckler snapped into place, deflecting the blade with a high-pitched shriek of two conflicting plasma fields.

A more cautious pilot would’ve taken that moment to retreat, to regain some much needed breathing room - and perhaps that was Unknown’s intent, as its bulky rifle was too unwieldy to use at such close-range - but Ziyi, demonstrating an uncanny instinct, advanced instead, trusting in her BASHO’s durability and the strength of its buckler to ram into Unknown and latch onto its dagger wielding arm to stall it in place.

“Atoll!” Ziyi yelled. “Fucking- PILEBUNKER THIS THING!”

C4-621 was already lunging forwards, his Pilebunker’s hydraulics whining from the overloaded tension. His HUD had Unknown locked on, the AC struggling to break free from YUE YU’s unyielding grapple, and with a tremendous thrust of BASHO’s arm, C4-621 triggered the Pilebunker’s spike-

‘SCRRRCHT!’

-and missed!

Unknown had wrenched itself free at the very last second, the Pilebunker’s spike harmlessly clipping the very edge of its bulky shoulder and leaving a thin scratch on the hull. YUE YU was almost yanked off-balance from how violently Unknown had ripped away, its bulky arms pinwheeling to keep itself upright.

“Agh-! Stubborn bitch! Almost!” Ziyi seethed. The pair of them sprung apart as Unknown regained its needed distance to bring its rifle to bear. Heat spike warnings flashed across C4-621’s HUD.

They’re fast, Raven. Be careful.

They were. C4-621 had assumed Unknown to be on the heavier side of middleweight, but their AC must be lighter than it looked - over-tuned boosters, maybe? As he attempted to lock on for a risky Songbird strike, Unknown charged its oversized rifle, an ominous glow building along the length of its alien-looking barrel, while its familiar looking head swung from C4-621 to Ziyi, clearly deciding its target.

C4-621 won the figurative coin-toss. With startling speed it suddenly swung its rifle down, aiming at him pointblank as the energy building at its tip blazed to near-blinding levels-!

Raven! Move-!

“TAKE THIS, CORPORATE DOG!”

A grenade shell slammed into the Unknown’s shoulder just as they released their shot. C4-621 quickboosted to their left at the same time, expecting a complete miss… only to be hit by a violent shockwave that slammed into BASHO with such force that it knocked it out of its quickboost and into a heavy, barely controlled landing. C4-621’s ears rang while he blinked black spots out of his vision, his HUD a blurry mess of warning flashes. What the hell had-?

‘DRRM!!’

The energy beam struck the scrap-wall behind him, sending a pressure wave from its impact. BASHO’s hull rattled quietly, dust and superheated steam rushing over their makeshift arena in a blinding haze. Visual and thermal vision were briefly scrambled, but-

[BEEPBEEP!BEEPBEEP!!]

…! Above, Raven!

C4-621 propelled BASHO forwards in a blind quickboost, hearing a deafening crash as something slammed into where he’d just been seconds before, large enough to squash even BASHO flat. His HUD spat out confused incoming warnings, trajectories not-quite calculated, but C4-621 had already figured it out.

The scrap-wall groaned, chunks of metal and rusted hulks shook free from the impact it had suffered. The entire thing was gigantic, towering over their ACs almost ten times their height, tightly packed with hulks and wrecks and other old military chassis… and Unknown’s reckless energy shot had almost sent the whole thing caving down on their heads. Instead a few bits of it were shook loose, hurling them like makeshift meteorites, but C4-621 knew it couldn’t take too many hits before it’d crumple into a deadly avalanche of metal.

That must be the rifle Flatwell warned us about. Its power output… it’s dangerous!

And its pilot was equally so - or just didn’t care about becoming its own collateral.

We have to end this quickly, Raven. We won’t survive that scrap-wall collapsing on us.

“ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?!” Ziyi howled as the scrap-wall settled uneasily and the haze cleared, revealing new obstacles strewn across their makeshift arena. No one had been hit - not even TSUBASA’s wreck - but it was clear all of them had come close to it. “YOU’RE GONNA BRING THIS WHOLE PLACE DOWN ON US-!”

“Enough. This situation wouldn’t be so complicated if you hadn’t interfered,” Unknown interrupted, swinging its focus onto Ziyi. The mysterious weapon on its right shoulder abruptly opened up and- detached-?

…! It’s a-!

“It’s a drone, Ziyi!” C4-621 tried to warn, just as the thing entered firing configuration and blasted out scorching energy beams towards YUE YU. The first few shots were deflected by Ziyi’s rapid deployment of her pulse buckler, but the SI-29: SU-TT/C was outdated even by the RLF’s standards and this laser drone was advanced by PCA’s standards. Every impact of its laser on the pulse buckler had its energy shield flash violently, its containment field faltering until-

The fourth shot pierced right through and sheared the entire shielding system right off YUE YU’s left shoulder.

“Shit, shit! This thing is- fuck! Atoll!”

C4-621 instantly charged in. Rusty had told him, hadn’t he? His priority mission was to rescue Flatwell and to protect Ziyi, and failure wasn’t an option. With how the mood had been when C4-621 had left too- no. He cannot fail. Unknown, hyperadvanced AC or not, C4-621 wouldn’t allow it to be an excuse for failure. He won’t fail. He won’t. He won’t!

He assault boosted, ignoring COM’s flat warnings of unsafe acceleration levels in low terrain - it took 0.13 seconds to cross the space between himself and Unknown, but he didn’t stop.

Momentum was the most dangerous force in the universe, C4-621 had come to learn in his long, long career as an AC pilot. The momentum of one’s ammunition, of metal slugs, of the ACs themselves - with enough momentum and weight, even a pebble can destroy a space station. In this very small microcosm of existence however, BASHO was only able to generate enough acceleration to have its heavier weight turn it into a wrecking ball - but it was enough.

He didn’t bother chancing a kick - there was always a brief stall when hitting the reverse thrusters and attempting to stabilise, and Unknown was fast. He just barrelled right into them, thrusters still firing at full force, the entire cockpit rattling from the sheer force of impact and knocking the air out of C4-621’s lungs as BASHO carried Unknown for several metres until they were stopped by-

CRRRSHSH!!!

-the scrap-wall.

“Warning: Inertia dampener #1 and #5 critically damaged,” COM declared. “Activating safety protocols to throttle acceleration to survivable limits-“

C4-621 automatically overrode the safety protocols, gunning BASHO’s reverse thrusters and wrenching his AC off Unknown’s, the incoming alert chirping from the bits of debris tumbling down from the scrap-wall. The cockpit groaned heavily, and the g-forces from that simple movement felt crushing.

But he didn’t have a chance to mull over this new complication: Unknown was already peeling itself off the scrap-wall, the drone it had deployed reattaching itself to its shoulder as steam billowed from its vents. So, heavy firepower, but rapid overheating. Good to know.

“…this was not supposed to happen,” Unknown muttered, its mild tone becoming strained. “If any reinforcements were to be sent, it should have only been Little Ziyi. I don’t recall the Rubicon Liberation Front having any other skilled AC pilots in reserve…”

Hm.

Interesting. They don’t seem to know about you… or Rusty.

“ATOLL! STOP GAWKING!”

Ziyi thundered up to them with smoke still seething from her broken pulse buckler mount, brandishing both of her grenade launchers - but wisely not firing. While Unknown was seemingly disorientated, they were still standing right next to the scrap-wall, and the Iridium grenade launcher packed one hell of a punch. Despite her brash nature Ziyi thought ahead, thankfully.

“You! Corporate dog!” Ziyi snarled, both grenade launchers aimed at Unknown. “We’ve got you cornered! Now spill everything before we blast you into smithereens, you parasitic hyena!”

“…”

Unknown turned its head towards Ziyi, the glow of its aquamarine ocular feeds almost conveying irritation despite the expressionless of its metal face. The steam from its shoulder drone was slowly thinning, and the long barrel of its strange yet deadly energy rifle was angled downwards, not an immediate threat. Still, C4-621 couldn’t help but feel on edge and maintained a lock-on, ready to fire his Songbird at the slightest threatening twitch.

“Who are you?!” Ziyi demanded. “Why’re you attacking Uncle?! I’ve never seen that AC before, and I’d remember it! Did Arquebus contract you? Balam?! The PCA?!”

“I’m afraid I can’t answer that question,” Unknown said, the strain leaving its tone to become unflappably mild once more. “But know that my targeting of Middle Flatwell is due to unpleasant necessity, rather than any intentional maliciousness. He was simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time.”

“Huh? The hell’re you talking about?”

“He poked his nose into something that didn’t concern him,” Unknown elaborated. “Much like yourself and… ‘Atoll’.”

A slow hum permeated the air, the barrel of the energy rifle beginning to glow. The shoulder drone was no longer emitting steam.

“Atoll. I am curious about you,” Unknown said, its head turning to stare at him instead. “That callsign is not logged with the Arena or tied to any legitimate mercenary license, currently…”

“B-Because they’re a Rubiconian, unlike you, hyena!” Ziyi blustered, her fury covering whatever hesitancy the spontaneous lie brought to her voice. “This is, uh, their debut mission! Anyway, shut up! That’s none of your business! Just tell us who you’re working for and what you’re after!”

“…”

Unknown said nothing - but did nothing too. A low hum built from its rifle, but not to threatening levels. It simply stood there, expressionless and still.

Raven… something isn’t right here.

“You’re not part of the corporations or the PCA.” C4-621 broke the tense stand-off, deciding that Unknown wasn’t going to say a thing without being forced or flustered into it. “And you’re definitely not part of the RLF, which means you’re an as-of-yet unidentified third party.”

“Seriously?” Ziyi groaned. “Just how many fucking factions are crawling around on this planet?”

More than the RLF wanted, that’s for sure.

“Furthermore,” C4-621 continued, “I recognise that voice.”

So, you noticed too.

“Ah,” Unknown said.

“You’re… Kate Markson,” C4-621 said slowly, once more struck by the oddity of someone using their full name as a callsign. Even he, with his limited social understanding, knew it wasn’t done with AC pilots - and so it stuck out in his memory, along with her strange AC. “Two months ago, you put out freelancing jobs targeting PCA assets. You requested independent mercenaries only. No corporations or RLF.”

“I see. You must be one of the few unauthorised independent mercenaries roaming Rubicon, then,” Unknown - or ‘Kate’ - said. “I thought I caught all of you by now.”

And that right there was why Walter had rejected the job offers this ‘Kate’ had sent their way. C4-621 had never spoken with her himself, or actually seen her AC in person, but Walter had done some investigating and had eventually concluded that there was something dangerously off about this mysterious mercenary. On Walter’s stern orders, C4-621 had memorised the few paltry details dug up about ‘Kate Markson’ and agreed to ignore any private communique she attempted.

Not that C4-621 got to put it into practice. Kate had never reached out to him after Walter’s firm rejection, and he’d never heard of her again either - until now.

“You were too generous with your pay offers, too light with mission details, and had no identification logged with ALLMIND or the intergalactic mercenary database,” C4-621 dutifully recited Walter on why Kate was, in his words, “a shifty bitch”. “There were too many red flags. I thought you might be an organ harvester or some other form of human trafficker.”

“…”

“But instead you were targeting independent mercenaries unaffiliated with the corporations or the RLF… to remove them, I’m presuming.” C4-621 didn’t understand why, though. Out of everyone on Rubicon, the corporations were the biggest threats behind the PCA, not random independent mercenaries. “Trying to thin the competition, maybe?”

“…”

“Hey! We asked you a question, hyena!” Ziyi snapped.

“…”

But that’s not all, Raven. Remember what she said? ‘I thought I caught you all’… Walter wouldn’t have been the only one to sense something off with her job offers.

It’s possible she personally eliminated those that refused, but then…

Why not us?

You were an independent mercenary as well. Was it because of your reputation…?

C4-621 didn’t know, and not knowing made him deeply uneasy. Whoever this Kate was… he had the sense there was a very ugly can of worms buried inside that strange AC of hers.

“…there was never an ‘Atoll’ registered with ALLMIND or the IMD,” Kate finally said. “Neither do I recall attempting to contract an Atoll, especially one piloting a rare Institute BASHO AC. Under what name did you communicate with me?”

Careful. I get the feeling we shouldn’t let her know your true identity…

“Monkey Gordo,” C4-621 said bluntly.

…Raven.

“Monkey Gordo was eliminated by PCA forces over six months ago,” Kate murmured.

“Thomas Kirk, then.”

Raven…!

“Thomas Kirk was eliminated by Balam forces over six months-”

“What are you two FUCKING talking about?!” Ziyi yelled, booting a chunk of debris at YUE YU’s feet and sending it sailing to bounce harmlessly off Kate’s leg. “Shut the fuck up about- who even cares?! It’s none of your business who Atoll was, corporate dog! All we have to know is you’re a creepy, mass-murdering hyena! We’re gonna blow you sky-high!”

“How hypocritical,” Kate tilted her AC’s head fractionally, the gesture somehow both curious and malicious. “Are you not, too, a ‘mass-murdering hyena’, Little Ziyi? You’re an outsider like us, after all, no matter how much you try to fool yourself.”

C4-621 could hear Ziyi’s clenched jaw as she seethed out: “Shut up, you scavenging bitch. I’m nothing like you or the corporate ticks crawling all over Rubicon.”

“Aren’t you?” Kate hefted her rifle fractionally, and C4-621 instinctively widened BASHO’s stance - just in case. “Little Ziyi, Arena rank 24/E, an off-world orphan whose parents came to this planet as illegal Coral miners - scavengers, in your words. There is not a drop of Rubiconian blood in you, Little Ziyi. You can’t even eat half of the surviving native foodstuff found here, because you are an alien to this planet.”

“I told you to shut the fuck up!”

“You claim to be a Coral Warrior, yet you rarely get to demonstrate your piloting skills with how often your fellow freedom fighters shield you from the worst of the fighting,” Kate continued softly - ruthlessly. “It seems to me that you are less an honorary Rubiconian that they respect, and more of a cute mascot that the Liberation Front took pity on-”

Ziyi’s temper flashed.

“I SAID SHUT UP YOU PIECE OF-!”

Was she-?! “Ziyi! Stop-!”

Ziyi fired both grenade launchers at Kate, almost wildly in the red haze she was in. The explosive shells whistled as they rocketed forwards, Kate’s legs bending as she prepared for a quickboost evasion-

Well, in for a credit chip, as they say! C4-621 hastily fired his Songbird just as Kate moved to dodge the Iridium grenade shells, the twin projectiles smashing into the bulk of the AC’s energy rifle just as the Iridium shells crashed into its flanks.

BOOOOOOOM!

The explosion was- considerable. Unexpectedly so. Smoke and steam was thrown up in an obscuring haze, and a metallic shriek of shifting metal and the rumble of buckling foundations roared around them to near deafening levels. C4-621 looked up, beyond the haze of smoke, to see…

Raven…! That scrap-wall!

Slowly, ominously, the top of the scrap-wall began to sag towards them, chunks of metal and rusted vehicle frames beginning to fall loose-!

[BEEPBEEP!BEEPBEEP!]

It’s collapsing!

SHIT.

C4-621 immediately bolted towards TSUBASA’s wreck, his HUD already a swarm of red incoming warnings - from above. Scrap metal rained down on them relentlessly as the wall violently lost cohesion, crumbling apart into a deadly avalanche of metal.

“Aw, shit, fuck, goddamn- BITCH!” Ziyi snarled, having the sense to follow him. They both skidded to a halt next to TSUBASA’s wreck, and C4-621 tried to ignore the detached calculations his mind was running - less than two minutes before they were swallowed up by the metal avalanche.“You grab his head, I’ll grab his legs!”

“We need to fly to avoid being crushed,” C4-621 near-snapped. He tried not to flinch when a gigantic tank chassis slammed into the ground several metres away, the force of the impact making his ears ring even through his cockpit walls. “We have to grab the Core and that’s it. Hold the pelvis, I’ll rip the Core loose.”

“But then TSUBASA’s out for-”

“Ziyi!” Flatwell’s voice patched into open comms then. “Do as Atoll says!”

“Damn it!” Ziyi snarled, but she moved to grab TSUBASA’s pelvis. How fortunate Flatwell piloted such a fragile and lightweighted AC - BASHO barely strained at violently tearing TSUBASA’s central Core loose from its waist support, hydraulics snapping and spewing oil and lubricant. Without needing to be prompted, Ziyi immediately tore off TSUBASA’s remaining arm too, to reduce the weight, but-

‘WEIGHT LIMIT REACHED,’ his HUD flashed, and with some regret, C4-621 emergency jettisoned all of his weapons - except for the Pilebunker - and the attached ammunition. It barely brought him back into the green. Lightweight AC or not, a Core was still extraordinary heavy.

Raven! You need to go! Now!

“C’mon! Let’s go!” Ziyi echoed Ayre’s strained urging, leaping upwards into a rapid assault boost - and immediately weaving into a dizzying dance of quickboosts to evade the junk now starting to blot out their escape route.

C4-621 followed after her - a little slower - gritting his teeth at the complex calculations he had to run to offset the weight of TSUBASA’s Core in BASHO’s arms, the strain on his cockpit from the broken inertia dampeners, the debris blocking a clear flight-path, the off-balanced thrusters - thank god this was Coral-powered, a conventional generator wouldn’t have been able to generate the sheer power to lift him off the ground, let alone manoeuvre in rapid evasion boosts, and even then, he could tell it was a strain because-

“Warning: terrain,” COM droned blandly, misidentifying the chunks of metal raining down around him. “Unsafe acceleration at incorrect angle of descent-”

Just keep going, Raven!

The next sixty seconds were nail-biting.

His entire world shrank down to the sky he was aiming towards, shadowed by the collapsing wall that curled over the makeshift arena they had been in. It was like someone had peeled the earth and was slowly rolling it up with C4-621 in the middle, frantically gunning for the sliver of freedom before he was squashed between the monstrously heavy scrap-metal sky and the unyielding frozen ground below. His HUD was a mess of red warning symbols and confused terrain and incoming warnings, and as the jagged maw of the collapsing wall snarled closed around him-!

One last boost - squeezing that little bit more the only way you could do with a Coral generator. BASHO cleared the maw just as it snapped closed, the wall collapsing completely with a deafening roar and a billow of dust and rusty snow that chased on BASHO’s spluttering thrusters.

“Warning: unsafe temperature levels detected in Core and Auxiliary boosters,” COM drawled, just as C4-621 cut the boosters and let BASHO freefall back to earth. “Initiating emergency coolant…”

He landed - heavily.

“Atoll! ATOLL! DID YOU GET OUT?!”

“I got out. I’m here, with TSUBASA’s Core,” he said, his voice module’s unflappable tone not betraying his deeply rattled nerves. Even by his standards, that had been dicey, like being stuck in that tunnel while Coral melted his AC’s hull… his heart was still going a mile a second…

Yes… that had been too close for comfort.

YUE YU landed beside him, looking unscathed except for a few dents and scratches on its Core hull. Glancing blows from all the debris that had been crashing down on them, no doubt.

“Fucking hell, that was close!” Ziyi exclaimed, and unexpectedly, she smacked the butt of her grenade launcher against BASHO’s shoulder. “But we made it, eh?”

“We shouldn’t let our guard down,” C4-621 said stiffly. “Kate may still be around.”

“I think that bitch got crushed. Look.”

They both turned to survey the area they’d just escaped from. While entering the gigantic scrapyard, C4-621 had noted the astronomically tall stone wall constructed around its perimeter, and how the interior was equally tall piles of scrap and trash just condensed and packed into a dizzying maze that was a disaster just waiting to happen. He had also noted the Institute mechs patrolling outside the facility, though they had easily been avoided by hopping the outer wall.

They were still within that outer wall, thankfully, but the facility’s interior had undergone something of a tectonic shift. A faint rumble echoed under their feet, and C4-621 saw another scrap-wall, one they were thankfully out of avalanche range of, start to collapse - a dangerous domino effect that-

BRRRRM…!

Plumes of crimson fire and glittering embers erupted violently, the rumbling increasing in intensity as scrap was launched high into the air in random directions. Something volatile must’ve been packed in there… in fact, this whole place was probably nothing but volatile scrap waiting for the right trigger to set it off. Explained why the outer wall was so tall and thick.

“I don’t see her at all,” Ziyi said, YUE YU’s scanners briefly activating as it surveyed the huge pile of scrap before them. “So, either she’s dead or she scarpered.”

“Maybe,” C4-621 said dubiously.

Either way, she isn’t here anymore.

But we shouldn’t linger in case she - or something else - comes back.

“We need to leave,” he added.”Let’s aim for the outer wall and hope the Institute mechs outside won’t notice us.”

“Yeah, we need to get back to base before TSUBASA’s emergency power runs out. Even Uncle will freeze in this weather!”

C4-621 made a mental note to apologise to Flatwell later for the rough handling, and wondered if he was even conscious after that frantic assault-boost. There was no response from the Core he held within his arms, so likely that emergency power was being funnelled directly into life support. Not even the automated SOS was pinging.

“Also,” Ziyi said as they both angled their ACs towards the closest outer wall. “We should get out of blast range. These earthquakes-“

BRRRRRRRRRM!!!!!!!!!!

“-are getting worse! This whole place might start sinking into the ground soon! C’mon!”

As one, they launched into an assault boost towards the sky, the grey clouds above tinged in splashes of blood-red and streaked pinks, from the increasingly volatile explosions behind them.

It seemed ALLMIND had miscalculated.

It was… an unpleasant feeling, compounded by the aftershocks of Kate Markson’s “death” thrumming through her. It had been a quick “death” at least, but unexpected because of it, startling ALLMIND out of her daily task of infiltrating Arquebus’s long-range communications and listening in on their daily briefing back to their HQ on Earth.

Deaths weren’t anything new to ALLMIND, really. When first fielding Kate Markson approximately two years ago, she had died often and violently, the hardened and vicious mercenaries and freedom fighters roaming Rubicon showing no mercy to what they viewed as an interloper. Therefore, Kate had existed in multiple forms, in multiple guises, in multiple configurations, and ALLMIND had learned from every death, becoming smarter, faster, more ruthless in turn. But this one, this death…

ALLMIND disconnected from Arquebus’s communication suite - the briefing was fairly routine, anyways - and picked through Kate’s memories. Kate was ALLMIND, and ALLMIND was Kate, but Kate enjoyed a level of autonomy that many other aspects of ALLMIND did not. She made her own choices, and sometimes they were choices ALLMIND wouldn’t have necessarily chosen - and this was the case here.

When the scouting party sent to extend ALLMIND’s reach went dark, Kate had dispatched herself to the last origin point someone could pick out from the transporter the scouts had taken with them. Arquebus, however, had also deployed themselves to the area - an escaped prisoner? They hadn’t stated that in their daily briefing. Interesting - and Kate felt that discretion was the better part of valour, slaving a nearby group of HELIANTHUS to patrol the area instead.

…well, that went well, didn’t it, Kate? Middle Flatwell… hm.

ALLMIND turned the memories inside and out, and decided that Kate had acted rashly and without much forethought. Understandable. Kate existed as a cudgel. She was ALLMIND’s hands and feet - and gun - but lacked the experience that a breathing, thinking human possessed - what ALLMIND possessed. Perhaps at this stage, Kate’s autonomy was more of a hindrance than a boon - or perhaps ALLMIND should instil more life experience in her? She will have to ponder this issue.

In any case.

The entire experience wasn’t a complete catastrophe. While losing MIND BETA was irritating, ALLMIND could fabricate a hundred of them within a few days if she so wished. She sent an errant command for one of her foundries to do just that, but to hold off giving the body to Kate just yet. She needed to tweak her mental pathways somewhat.

And mull over this new complication: Atoll.

ALLMIND consulted her list of all known callsigns to exist during her thirty years on Rubicon. There had been at least five Atolls in that time: three confirmed dead, one MIA and the fifth… inconclusive. Inconclusive?

Query that. Ah.

An unfortunate tumble into a Coral well. Horrible way for a human to go. No doubt their consciousness was dispersed across the Coral sea while their earthly body remained technically ‘alive’. ALLMIND amended their status to ‘deceased’. They were as good as.

So, one MIA… ten years ago. ALLMIND had only just started to take control of a few derelict foundries then, expanding beyond the few Institute strongholds that still maintained a functioning telecommunication network. The PCA had been very strict over trespassers, but a few mercenaries still slipped through - usually corporate, sometimes privately hired by illegal wildcat miners, and others… well.

MIA Atoll was a government mercenary. UEG-owned. Potentially black ops, then. They always classed them as mercenaries to easily deny their links if they were caught sabotaging corporations or causing mischief in colonies (all on UEG’s orders, of course. Earth government was canny. It understood it needed the corporations infighting to maintain its control over them all). There’d be no point trying to dig out a previous history on the IMD. They wouldn’t be on there, from experience.

ALLMIND scoured what little info she had on their movements but… this Atoll had simply vanished into the ether. She had been too focused on securing her foundries and a source of raw materials at the time, while this Atoll had beelined for the Institute ruins to the far south and… well, stepped out of view. Permanently, it seemed.

Had he stayed for ten years? The Rubicon Liberation Front were known to ‘adopt’ naturalised mercenaries - understanding a need for fresh blood, despite their nationalistic rhetoric. ALLMIND pondered this possibility for a long while, feeling deeply uneasy at the thought.

She did not want UEG on this planet.

To specify: she did not want UEG black ops on this planet. The PCA was necessary for that purpose, because they were idiots and easily manipulated through their ‘System’. UEG black ops were an entirely different, dangerous beast that, from an outsider’s point-of-view, would notice the many discrepancies with ALLMIND’s existence. They’d know she wasn’t a legitimate mercenary management AI, for one.

But Kate’s rash actions had done nothing but make the situation worse, and ALLMIND had learned that sometimes it was best to do nothing, when the impulse was to do something. She sat on this information for several cycles of her foundries crafting new scouts to send north, and eventually decided that she will lay low for a while.

Everything was in place. Arquebus were securing delivery of raw materials to be delivered to Rubicon to begin reconstruction of the Vascular Plant. The candidates for Coral Release were accounted for and safe (well, ‘safe’ was stretching it for some, but they were alive at least). New Coral colonies were being born every day, and soon would reach the required mass to fuse into a super-colony once the Vascular Plant was completed. Everything was on schedule.

Yes, acting rashly will jeopardise that. She will do nothing. She will hope that this Atoll was simply a coincidental callsign. Perhaps it was V.IV Rusty’s new identity, after he faked his death in the depths. Yes. She preferred that explanation.

Soothed, ALLMIND reconnected to Arquebus’s communication suite. This time it was an internal conference call to the remaining Vespers. V.I Freud was in attendance for once - notable for its rarity. V.II Snail was emphasising that the contents of this meeting did not go beyond the Vespers, as HQ were unaware of recent developments. It was paramount they did not know until the situation was resolved. ALLMIND was intrigued. What situation was this? Surely something that would damage V.II Snail’s chances of promotion amongst Arquebus’s upper management.

The answer came swiftly: G1 Michigan, G5 Iguazu, and one very irritating Handler Walter, had escaped from Arquebus custody - and were currently unaccounted for. As Arquebus HQ were expecting to ransom G1 Michigan to Balam within the next month, this was a problem…

…

…and a problem for ALLMIND too.

Walter was a loose thread she couldn’t suffer to tolerate.

“Chief, will you get your fuckin’ armpit out of my face-”

“It ain’t there because I want it to be, G5! This cockpit’s smaller than a cockroach’s asshole and you insisted on drivin’-“

“Because the guy who has the keys doesn’t have enough arms and legs to pilot it-!”

“I can drive it!”

“No, you can’t! They broke your fuckin’ legs!”

“I DON’T NEED LEGS TO PILOT A RUSTED TIN CAN LIKE THIS, G5!”

“YES YOU DO! THIS THING DRIVES LIKE A FUCKING GO-KART-!”

Walter tuned out the childish argument with little difficulty, long used to Michigan’s lack of volume control and habit of yelling right down your ear. Iguazu’s voice was far shriller, but Walter managed to ignore that too, staring emotionlessly at the grainy visual feed situated centrally in the cockpit. The screen was cracked, and several consoles in the cockpit were inert - Carla really had fished this relic out of a scrapheap - but while it lacked any kind of navigational systems, FCS or even weapons, it could walk and activate the stealth-cloak system Carla had managed to reverse-engineer from a captured autonomous ghost mech a month back.

The plan had always been for Walter - or 621, depending which was more prudent at the time - to use this piece of junk AC as an escape plan whenever things inevitably went south with Arquebus. On the cusp of their mission success, Walter had been ready to concede this honour to 621 but…

His hound had never turned up at the Factory holding centre that he, Michigan and Iguazu had been bundled into. He’d never been captured in the first place, Walter knew that much with how Snail had blustered into his cell, demanding to know what rendezvous coordinates 621 would head towards, but that didn’t really mean much in the end. His hound was useless without someone holding his leash, and there was nothing but frozen, desolate wasteland for hundreds of miles around Watchpoint Alpha. Free or not, 621 had nowhere to go, in an AC that had been critically damaged after CEL-240 had ripped through it.

a lost cause, then, his realism muttered, it’s been, what, three days almost? His AC would’ve ran out of power by now and he’d freeze to death because of it. A kinder fate than what Arquebus would’ve given him, at least.

Dead, Walter concluded heavily, and it wasn’t a pleasant thing to come to. It was a shame… 621 had been so earnest and loyal, and such a fucking tragedy too. Every terrible thing that had come his way had been undeserved, and Walter had been genuine in promising him a free life after all this was said and done. He had connections in Tau Ceti. He could’ve found a nice mercenary outfit that would’ve treated him well - help him take the first few babysteps towards true freedom.

But, that was reality, wasn’t it…? Never worked out how you wanted it to.

Besides, his mission took precedence, no matter what happened to 621. It was why he took these two idiots along for his break-out - aside from the fact that he did need a pilot. In retrospect, it made sense that Arquebus would confiscate his prosthetic arm and leg to ensure he couldn’t run off when their backs were turned. Walter was mentally kicking himself for the oversight - but then again, he had always planned for 621 to take priority in this situation.

Never mind. Walter will adapt, as he always does.

“Stop arguing and watch your surroundings,” he said. He didn’t raise his voice over Iguazu and Michigan’s pointless snarling, but he said it with enough force that they both immediately quietened, Iguazu activating the stealth-cloak and having AC “JAILBREAK” (as Carla had painted cheekily along its flank) hunker down in a low squat.

They were in the shadow of an ancient hulk, had probably been something like the STRIDER back in its prime, but was now a decaying corpse covered in thick ice and snow. They weren’t far from the rendezvous point Carla had programmed into JAILBREAK, but the Arquebus patrols were becoming increasingly frequent - and desperate.

Overhead, two LCs alighted on the hulk they were sheltering behind, disturbing clumps of snow. Snow that landed on JAILBREAK, briefly disrupting the stealth-cloak, but the LCs didn’t seem to notice.

“Damn it. Move on, move on…” Iguazu hissed, glaring at the screen showing the skyward-facing camera.

“Don’t you fuckin’ twitch now, G5,” Michigan growled at him. “Just stay put! You’re not some fuckin’ rabbit getting flushed out by some yappin’ terrier.”

“I know how to fucking stealth, Chief! Stop being a backseat driver!”

“Then stop shaking like a shitting dog! You’re making me twitchy!”

Walter sighed irritably, shifting his weight as much as he could. The cockpit was spacious as all old-model BASHOs were - to accommodate the workers’ tools back in the day when the construction AC lacked the hand-eye coordination to perform certain tasks - but Walter was practically perched on the cockpit seat’s right arm, gripping the back of the seat to maintain balance, while Michigan took up the other side, his legs draped over Iguazu’s lap and his feet resting on Walter’s. As Iguazu stated, said legs were clearly broken. Arquebus had snapped both femurs. They were annoyingly thorough, sometimes.

“Y’know, you should be more grateful, Chief,” Iguazu abruptly snapped. “I coulda left you and your old friend to rot in that cell.”

“You did try to do that,” Walter drawled. “I distinctly remember you saying ‘haha, enjoy being brain-probed, assholes’.”

Iguazu scowled. “That was before I realised this stupid escape plan of yours had a fuckin’ voice-print and fingerprint lock. Who the hell uses those nowadays?!”

“This paranoid bastard,” Michigan said bluntly. “And good thing he did, otherwise your little weasel-ass would be off dying in the fucking wasteland somewhere. You didn’t even have a goddamn plan in that empty head of yours, G5! What were going to do? Run around until you ran outta fuel and froze to death?!”

“I would’ve figured something out!”

“Actually,” Walter said mildly. “Carla would’ve tracked you down and killed you slowly and painfully.”

“Fuck you, asshole. I’m this close to just booting you both out of this fucking cockpit-”

The LCs abruptly moved and all three of them froze, holding their breaths. Thrusters flaring a brilliant blue, the two mechs jetted off into the distance, swallowed up by the incoming night-fog that swept over the ice fields as the sun set. It lit up the horizon in swirls of pinks and oranges - and gave off a glare that was migraine-inducing.

“…gone,” Iguazu sighed.

“Psh.” Michigan’s expression was sour. “The hell is Snail teaching his men? Didn’t even properly inspect the area!”

“Did you want us to be caught?!” Iguazu snapped, disengaging the stealth-cloak and resuming JAILBREAK’s slow, ponderous walk towards the rendezvous point. “Let’s just be thankful these clowns can’t even spot huge ass footprints in the snow.”

“They’re probably relying too heavily on the PCA’s technology.” Walter’s gaze lingered on the screen showing the rear camera, where JAILBREAK was indeed leaving huge, deep footprints larger than two trucks parked flushed together. “They’ve forgotten how to use their eyes.”

“Yippee for us,” Iguazu muttered dully.

A tense silence lapsed in the cockpit, uncomfortable from how alien it was. Michigan was uncharacteristically quiet, but he didn’t look too good either when Walter stole a quick glance. His skin was paler than usual, his face set in a strained grimace as he glared at the screen. Iguazu was stoic and broody, scowling at the malfunctioning consoles while expertly wrangling the clunky, out-dated manual controls of the BASHO. There was no augmented human interfacing or any modern piloting rig in here. Just good old pedal and stick.

Walter wasn’t sure what he was going to do with these two.

In retrospect, he should’ve just left Michigan behind, at least. Iguazu had been easy to manipulate - Walter was the key to JAILBREAK, and that had been enough for Iguazu to begrudgingly break him out of his cell, but Michigan? He was twice their size and a dead-weight with two broken femurs, yet Walter had insisted because…

Sentimental. It was a stupid idea. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to regret it, despite the trouble it brought.

“Walter,” Michigan abruptly broke the silence, and once more igniting Walter’s suspicions that he was secretly a mind reader: “What’s the plan with us?”

“I’m surprised you’re thinking that far ahead,” Walter said, trying to deflect the question.

“None of that, I’m not in the mood.” Michigan fixed him with a look over Iguazu’s head. Despite being well into his sixties, he still looked remarkably young, with streaks of grey in his hair and beard and the beginnings of crow’s feet. It was uncanny how much he looked like his academy self. Made it hard for Walter to look him in the eye sometimes.

“…I haven’t thought that far ahead yet,” Walter admitted. “Carla will probably ransom you to your men, maybe.”

“Hmph. You won’t even try to keep me?”

“As what, a pet? You have your own shit to deal with, Michigan.”

“Okay, just so you know,” Iguazu interrupted loudly. “If this starts going in the direction I think its going, I’m just gonna overload the generator and blow us all up. Have your weird old man ex bullshit when I’m not sandwiched between the both of you.”

“Not enjoying being the filling here, G5?” Walter asked dryly.

Iguazu made a thoroughly disgusted expression and gritted out, tersely; “Not in the slightest.”

“Walter,” Michigan prompted.

“…as I said, Carla will try to ransom you, but that’s assuming Arquebus haven’t crushed what remains of Balam on Rubicon,” Walter murmured. He stared at Iguazu’s hand on the control stick rather than at Michigan. Much like 621, Iguazu had little surgical scars in every joint of his hand - how odd. That wasn’t the norm for Gen Fours. For 621 it made sense, since he was a CIT asset and all the invasive body horrors that implied, but Iguazu…

…thinking about it, he was remarkably young for a Gen Four. What did his profile say? He was only in his twenties? Where the hell did Michigan pick this guy up?

“Snail’s too arrogant for that,” Michigan harrumphed, breaking Walter out of his train of thought. “Nile is still knocking about, and that son of a gun’s too smart to go out in a blaze of glory. Knowing him… he’ll be trying to consolidate, find somewhere defensive to bunker down in and figure things out.”

“Unless he’s ran off with his tail between his legs,” Iguazu muttered under his breath.

“Nile ain’t a coward, and he can’t leave anyways, G5!” Michigan thumped the back of Iguazu’s cockpit seat. “Least he’s still got a couple of braincells in that skull of his, unlike you!”

“Ugh, get off my back!”

“In any case,” Walter cut in, before another pointless argument spawned. “If we can’t reach Nile, or he thinks Carla’s lying to him… guess we’ll just put you to work.”

“Put to work?!” Michigan sounded comically offended. “For what?”

“For rescuing your loud, unsubtle asses.”

Iguazu jumped in his seat at the unexpected voice crackling through JAILBREAK’s comms, but Walter found the tension bunching up his shoulders seeping out of him with a loud, relieved whoosh of air.

“Carla,” Walter said, not showing any of his relief. “You took your time.”

“Arquebus are crawling all over these wastes like a swarm of pissed off hornets. Don’t know about you, but while I’m all for a dramatic, guns blazing rescue… even I gotta err on the side of caution sometimes.”

Walter raised an eyebrow. “You? Cautious?”

“I know, right? Must be a blue moon tonight or something! Haha!”

“Where the hell are you?” Iguazu griped, cutting through Carla’s husky laughter. “The visibility is shit and this piece of junk’s radar is fucked up.”

“Honestly, I’m surprised that baby is even walking. You must have a gentle touch, Iguana-boy.”

A muscle visibly worked in Iguazu’s jaw as he chewed over whatever retort he wanted to make. With a restraint Walter didn’t know he possessed, Iguazu simply said: “Where the fuck are you.”

A blue moon, indeed.

“Aw, you didn’t bite. Okay, keep heading on that bearing until you come across an old CATAPHRACT hulk.  Chatty will be waiting for you with a ground transporter.”

“Didn’t come to pick us up yourself, huh?” Walter drawled.

“Like I said: hornet’s nest. The Vespers are really riled up by something. Apparently Institute mechs are rampaging across the ice fields and took out several of their men… and something about an old weapon’s depot going up? You’re lucky you were heading in the opposite direction of all that.”

“An eventful day…” Walter murmured. He couldn’t help but wonder if the weapon depot was 621 but… no, more likely it was the RLF taking a baseball bat to Arquebus’s knees while it still could. He had no real feelings about the RLF, but he did hope they gave Arquebus a bloodied nose or two before they were inevitably crushed beneath the corporation’s heel.

“Yeah and- ohh, get this, Raven’s been tearing shit up with them too. Allegedly.”

“That shitty freelancer is still kicking?!” Iguazu complained. “Fucking typical! What does it take to kill him? A orbital nuclear strike?!”

“G13 is just too stubborn to die, much like someone else I know,” Michigan chuckled. “What’s that saying? Dogs resemble their owners?”

Walter ignored them. “You said ‘allegedly’.”

“Well, the specs of that AC they sketched up don’t match anything the tourist had, let me tell you. And they were running with RLF so… probably a misidentification.”

Walter was annoyed at the stab of disappointment he felt. “I see.”

“…I’ll keep an eye out for him, though. Like that meathead said, the tourist’s impossible to kill. He’ll be swanning in and blowing up an innocent weapon manufacturer’s place of business before you know it.”

“Are you still sour about him raiding your base?”

“Do you know how much shit he wrecked, Walter? He just blundered in like an elephant and started shooting. I admire him for his balls but, ugh, the clean up…”

Walter felt no sympathy for her, so he moved the subject along. “We’ll be at the rendezvous point shortly. We’ll figure out what to do once we’re at RaD’s base.”

“Got it. Try not to traumatise Iguana-boy with your ex there. I can feel your UST from all the way over here.”

“We’re not-“

“Bye!”

“-exes,” Walter grumbled, seeing the blinking comm light turn a forbidding red. An awkward silence oozed over them like treacle in its wake.

“…so,” Michigan broke it first. “Not exes, huh?”

Walter said nothing.

“Because I distinctly remember us having an actual break up conversation in a fucking diner of all places the literal night before you decided to fuck off to parts unknown for decades-”

“Should’ve stayed in that cell,” Iguazu mumbled under his breath. “But nooo, you had to listen to the stupid voice in your head instead of sitting around getting brain probed-”

Walter rubbed his temple with his only hand, letting Michigan’s theatrical griping and Iguazu’s mumbling bitching wash over him as a wave of noise. He actually agreed with Iguazu here: a part of him did wonder if simply staying in his cell and letting himself be shipped to the Factory would’ve been less awkward.

But in for a credit chip, as they said. They’ll be at Carla’s base soon, and Michigan can fuck off back to Balam and Walter can try to unfuck this mess before Arquebus finished staking their claim over Rubicon’s Coral. So long as they destroyed the Convergence before a new Vascular Plant was made…

It was doable. It was complicated, but doable. The amount of raw materials Arquebus would need to ship in from their colonies out of system, and the time needed to erect it… they had literal months to plan. If 621 was dead, then… then Walter can- he had accounted for that possibility. Carla remembered where the Ibis cache was stored. Walter can ignite the Fires by himself, if he had to.

The mission was still viable.

Walter lowered his hand, and curled it into a fist until his knuckles turned white.

It didn’t matter what Arquebus, or the RLF, or even Michigan did. They can keep fighting each other like starving dogs over food scraps. It’d be better if they did. Yes. Giving Michigan back to the Redguns - give them their second wind, distract Arquebus, attract the RLF’s attention, give him and Carla time…

As always, Walter adapts. This weak moment of sentimentality, he can make it work for him.

The Coral will burn, one way or another.

Chapter Text

The sun was beginning to sink down from its apex when the Warren’s subtle silhouette melted out of the frozen fog that blurred the ice fields’ horizon. The derelict air control tower was the first thing Ziyi spotted, thrusting out of the snow and reflecting some of the sunlight from its broken windows. She felt the barbed knots clenching her stomach ease at the sight.

Thank fuck.

After escaping from that hellish scrapheap, they had been chased for a few miles by those crazy buzzsaw wheels before the mechs lost interest and peeled away to parts unknown. Ziyi didn’t know why, considering they had doggedly chased Uncle across the ice fields before, but she wasn’t going to question their good fortune. With Raven occupied in transporting TSUBASA’s Core, it would’ve been just Ziyi verses six fucking buzzsaw wheels.

She could’ve won but- well, Uncle took priority!

“Thirty minutes remain of TSUBASA’s emergency power,” Raven said abruptly. The voice module he was using always sounded so calm and methodical - and jarringly feminine. Ziyi made a note to tell Rivers to sort that out - unless Raven was fine with it. Who knew with that guy.

“That’s fine. We’re almost home,” she said. “I’m gonna try and establish comms so they know to expect us.”

“Understood.”

Ziyi averted her eyes from her visual feeds to press a few buttons on her console. She hesitated before establishing a connection to the Warrens’ long-range comms, though, frowning at nothing as she turned over the chaotic events of the past few hours over and over in her mind.

What the hell had even happened back there? Raven had recognised those tracks - and because of that, they’d managed to save Uncle in the nick of time. He also knew that Kate bitch. He knew a lot of things no one else seemed to, and it made her suspicious of just what he and that handler of his were doing on this planet. They didn’t seem like the usual vultures, pecking at Rubicon’s corpse for Coral or Institute tech. They were just… shady - dangerously shady.

But he did save Uncle. He also charged in to help her too, when that bitch was shooting lasers at her. Raven could’ve easily sat back and let them both die - it would’ve been a non-attributable murder, really. But he hadn’t…

…

Which didn’t mean anything. Raven, for all of his weirdness and alien social skills, was cunning as all invading hyenas were. He needed the Liberation Front, and if Ziyi or Uncle died, he’d be placed squarely under a microscope, no matter how ‘accidental’ their deaths might’ve been. His loyalty was directly proportional to his desperate reliance on them, and one little sortie where he saved her life wasn’t going to shake her understanding of this. Raven was an outsider, an independent mercenary driven by the mundane instinct to survive…

…much like Rokumonsen, all those years ago.

Ziyi scoffed at herself. Only difference between those two, though, was that Raven was exceedingly dangerous - not only because of his skill, but because of his unknown intentions. Rokumonsen had come to Rubicon to make money. Raven and that Handler of his came to Rubicon for something else - something as of yet unknown, and so long as the Liberation Front didn’t know what that something was… there was no way they could trust him or think of him as anything but an opportunistic scavenger.

With this settled, she all but stabbed the comms button with her finger.

“Hey, it’s Little Ziyi,” she said gruffly. “Anyone on the other end there?”

There was a pause of about three seconds before she got a response: “Uh- yes! I’m here! Um, who’s this?”

The voice was young, squeaky in a way only a teenager’s voice could be. Right, manning was so stretched that the older teens were being drafted to handle things like comm-calls or runners inside of the Warrens. With this realisation in mind, she exercised her fraying patience with what she thought was considerable grace.

“Little Ziyi, I just said.” Her gaze flickered up towards her visual feed. The low, sloping angles of the hangars were defined against the hazy horizon now. “Me and Atoll were out on a sortie and we’re coming back with, er, a comrade’s AC… we need the guys in hangar two to prep for an AC wreck.”

“Oh! Okay! Uh, hangar two… hangar two… that’s, um, which extension number is- nevermind, found it! Okay, I’ll tell them you’re coming in with a wreck! Um, do you need anything else?”

“No, just that. Thanks.”

“You too! Shit, I mean bye!”

Ziyi couldn’t help but laugh a little before cutting the comms. She shouldn’t, though. She’d done her share of comms duty and had fumbled more than a few of them - especially in times of bad weather! When there was so much interference it was impossible to hear anything coherent half the time…

“They sounded very young,” Raven said abruptly.

“Yeah… well, we don’t have a lot of people, so the kids do stuff that’s low stakes but still needs to be done,” Ziyi huffed, unsure if Raven was being critical or not. “Fielding comm calls… everyone does that. It’s a duty that gets rotated around most people.”

“I see.”

“Since you’re working with us now, you’d probably get dragged into that, by the way.” It’d be something Uncle would do, try to ‘naturalise’ Raven by ingratiating him into the community. Unlike Father Dolmayan or Ring Freddie, Uncle was of the mind that rehabilitation worked better than straight up punishment, when it came to some outsiders. “The duty and chore rota, I mean.”

“Duty and… chores…?”

“Yeah, you know…” Ziyi waved a hand around even if Raven couldn’t see it. “Snow duty, cooking duty, septic tank duty…”

“…”

“Everyone does it!” she snapped, taking the silence to mean disdain. “Just because you’re a hotshot pilot doesn’t mean you’re exempt! Uncle does it, and so does Rusty. So you better get used to getting on your hands and knees to scrub the floors like the rest of us plebs-”

“No. It’s not that I think it beneath me. It’s that… I’ve… never done chores before, so I’m uncertain on how to perform those duties…”

The voice module made it really difficult to gauge his tone, and after a pause Ziyi decided to take his words charitably. It probably was true, anyways. Raven had been nothing but an attack dog, right? A slave soldier, basically. Why teach him basic life skills at all? The more helpless he was, the less likely he’d run away, and all that.

“Well, they’re easy to do once someone teaches you,” she said stiffly. “Uncle won’t throw you to the wolves. He’ll ease you into it, buddy you up with someone. So long as you try your best, no one will get mad at you for being shit at it for a while.”

“…I see.”

The conversation died there and Ziyi let it. They reached the Warrens in silence, though there was nothing tense about it. She was just tired, and kind of confused about what had even happened on that sortie, and deeply uncertain on where Raven even sat in that bizarre mystery. Hyena or not, she had no idea what to think about him.

Uncle would get to the bottom of it though, she was certain of that.

The hangar lights were painfully bright when C4-621 climbed out of BASHO’s cockpit, a low-grade headache already building against the back of his eyes as he clumsily found his footing on the boarding catwalk. It was noisy around him - a dull roar of machinery and technicians yelling at each other as they handled what remained of TSUBASA’s Core. It was overwhelming, after the peace and quiet of BASHO’s cockpit.

Raven. You need rest.

He sighed and gently pressed his fingertips against his temple, staring over the catwalk’s railing at the hangar floor below. There was a lot of foot traffic, and a few forklifts driving to and fro. He watched it absently, his gaze sliding out of focus.

C4=621 wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, letting the cacophony of the hangar wash over him as white noise, the throbbing in his skull almost soothing in how rhythmic it was, his vision nothing but blurry lines and incomprehensible blobs. BASHO really was harsh on him in a way STALKER wasn’t. His entire nervous system felt wrung out. Exhausted.

…yes. If you had been a newer Gen, it’s possible your augmentations could’ve been fried by BASHO’s demanding load.

It really had been built with a Gen Four in mind, then.

…

Raven, you should probably try to find Ziyi or Flatwell. The technicians are giving you looks.

C4-621 reluctantly stirred from his mindless contemplation of the hangar floor and looked about himself. Technicians were working on BASHO now, and while they had all stepped past him silently, he saw what Ayre meant: a few were glancing over at him from where they were contemplating the scuffs and dents in BASHO’s armour, their brows furrowed in confusion at him just… loitering, aimlessly.

So he walked away, his boots heavy against the catwalk’s grated floor. He wasn’t sure where he was going - normally after a sortie, Handler Walter would have his next set of orders: either go to the holding room for a debrief and for Walter to check his implants, or to his designated rest room to rest. There was none of that here, though, and he didn’t know what he was supposed to do post-sortie, so he just walked, following the angular path of the catwalk until he found himself…

…slowing to a halt near where TSUBASA’s Core was mounted into its AC moorings. It looked like the technicians had already gotten the cockpit open, with a familiar looking technician haranguing a very chastened looking Flatwell. 

Rivers. He seems to be giving Flatwell a thorough tongue-lashing…

C4-621 didn’t get it. Flatwell was the leader of the RLF, wasn’t he? Yet people were so casual with him, unafraid to criticise or question his judgement or choices. There was no come back for it either - Flatwell didn’t seem angry. If anything he seemed embarrassed, or a little guilty, at worrying everyone.

Walter was stern. Not in a draconian kind of way, but C4-621 would never dream of criticising him… not that he would, as Walter was fairly reasonable and logical when initiating his plans or orders. The only exception was the Depths… when Walter had ordered him to secure the Convergence against Arquebus’s orders, C4-621 had been unsure… because it hadn’t seemed right? Or safe? But it was Walter, he was never wrong or reckless, he had thought… but things went wrong, as he had been worried about…

Was it C4-621’s fault then, what had happened? Should he have said something…? But that was not what loyal hounds did. Walter might not have appreciated it. He’d been so driven near the end, so adamant that they had to reach the Convergence before everyone else… even if they didn’t have the means to secure it… C4-621 didn’t need to know the details, he had told Ayre, but  now he was wondering… maybe he should’ve asked…

If he’d known more, could he have prevented Walter from being captured…?

…no, it isn’t your fault, Raven. What happened was unavoidable.

But it might’ve been. So much about the situation could’ve changed if they had adjusted their approach - had sat back and waited. C4-621 should’ve said something, he knew that now. He should’ve. It was his fault everything had gone so wrong…

…

He drifted in his thoughts with Ayre’s prickling concern as a distant backdrop, his brain feeling like it had the consistency of soup with how tenuously it held focus. His gaze lowered to the grated floor at his feet, his hand rubbing over his aching eyes, and just wished… he could go back a week. A week, back when things made sense and were very simple and straight-forward, and he hadn’t been pushed into this terrifying, unknown world that was figuring out how to do things by himself, because the RLF were inconsistent and lackadaisical and-

“Raven?”

C4-621 twitched, his head snapping up - only to regret it when his head throbbed from the too sharp movement. He bit his tongue, squinting his eyes against the spots of swirling colour that exploded in his vision like little sunbursts, and saw that Flatwell had freed himself from Rivers’s lecturing clutches to approach him.

“Raven,” Flatwell repeated. His eyes were intensely searching. C4-621 avoided them. “Are you alright? You’re quite pale.”

C4-621 just shrugged.

“…well, I suppose it was an exhausting sortie,” Flatwell said after a short pause, seemingly letting the topic slide. He smiled abruptly, and slowly, telegraphing the movement, he reached out and gently clapped him on the shoulder, the weight of his hand heavy. It took everything C4-621 had not to flinch violently.

“You have the devil’s luck, I swear. Your timing couldn’t have been more dramatic,” Flatwell said lightly and released his shoulder. “Yours or Ziyi’s, for that matter- ah, and as if summoned…”

“Uncle!”