Crossover With Non-anime Series Fan Fiction ❯ A Certain Machinist ❯ Preemptive ( Chapter 5 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

 

FIVE

 

PREEMPTIVE

 

I was working on calibrating one of my production machines, a multi-drill machine which enlarged the holes for the pins in the Model 3 and 4, since many of their internals were the same, or close enough. I was playing the local radio, which had a lot of amusing not-quite-same music to what I was used to back on Earth.

 

Remnant is a really strange planet from a cultural and entertainment point of view. You would expect entirely unique media after tens of thousands of years of separation, but much of it was almost the same. The tune ended and the DJ cut in with a news report of an explosion at the docks and report of some multi-vehicle crashes on the elevated expressway. This reminded me of events from the show. I hadn’t realized I’d worked all the way through the whole Cardin bullying arc and the Forever Fall incident. And that also meant that Penny Polendina was in town, and Blake hadn’t come to me like I’d suggested. She probably had her reasons. On the bright side, it also meant that Blake had met Sun Wukong, and she’d be able to get regular testosterone injections the usual way. And a guy she wouldn’t be ashamed to introduce to her parents.

 

It was the following morning when a police detective called my shop phone to request/order me to accompany them to the docks. I took one of my Model 2s and the Model 5 full battle rifle, along with a couple armed drones on top of my delivery van. I re-armed my warehouse security and slowly crossed Vale to the docks on the far side. It was near the max range of my vehicle battery, but I was able to plug in at a vehicle charging station outside the police line. I met the detective there.

 

“I’m Detective Squires. You John Wrench?” he asked me. It was the fake name I’d chosen. I’m a mechanical engineer here. Why not Wrench? “You’re the owner of Aperture Ballistics?” It was the name of the arms company I’d incorporated under Vale charter.

 

“That’s right. The council backed my charter,” I name-dropped to remind him that I wasn’t going to be screwed with.

 

“I see you’re armed. Are you a Hunter?” he asked me.

 

“Something like that. My factory is in a bad part of town. There have been problems with gangs fighting over territory nearby.”

 

“Strange thing, your factory. I’ve never met anyone who worked there,” commented Squires.

 

“Sure you have. My employees don’t disclose their employment. It is part of their non-disclosure agreement,” I contradicted him and smiled easily, like a much more charming person than I am. “So, what’s the reason you asked me here?”

 

“We found a number of crates containing your firearms inside the warehouse where the fires spread from the explosions outside,” the detective explained as they entered the crime scene. I wore latex gloves. I approached, noting the crates had Winchester family crest markings.

 

“These are property of the Winchester family. I sold them a number of my weapons. This might be in storage before shipping to their more remote estates?” I suggested. “I’m not in a position to know where they’re headed, but these numbers match legally sold firearms, not stolen from me.”

 

I scanned a number of serial numbers using the sales database in my scroll. It was linked to the server in my warehouse via encrypted VPN and the database was NOT created by Merlot. It was my own system. And my own encryption system. So it is probably secure. And the numbers matched my sales database, including the ‘discounted’ ones I’d bribed Winchester Senior into granting me council certification. A couple dozen machineguns to get immunity from the Vale police.

 

“Who owned this warehouse?” I asked the detective.

 

“It looks likes a bonded shipping warehouse company, but it isn’t clear if the warehouse was broken into or an insider just let them in. There are faunus employed here we can’t seem to find.”

 

“With all the explosions it would be hard to identify who is who from the debris and damage. Some might have been victims. Is there something else I can do for you, detective?” I confirmed. He shook his head no.

 

“I will let Councilman Winchester know that you’ll release his property to his men,” I suggested.

 

“Yes, that would be kind of you. I’ll be sure to let the men know the situation,” Detective Squires answered. I worked my way back out of the warehouse and lingering smoke, headed for my truck. My rifle was missing. I activated the homing mode and my drones lifted off, headed for a police van. I used my phone to call the Detective’s number. He met me there and grew angry at the van’s occupants.

 

“Miles! Get your ass out here!” Squires shouted harshly. A yelp from inside and the sound of various things falling inside rattled out.

 

“What? I’m running my labwork here,” complained the skinny young man in the white overalls. His eyes widened seeing me.

 

“My prototype Model 5 rifle is not your property, not is it evidence. When you removed it from my delivery vehicle,” and I played the video of him stealing it from my van, “you committed a felony. I’m a Council-certified arms maker, and that weapon is crucial to defense of Vale in the future.” The Detective reached for his cuffs.

 

“I can’t hide this Miles. You were warned. More than once,” Squires said, cuffing the tech and removing his sidearm. Two more uniformed police arrived from nowhere and hauled the tech away. Squires climbed into the van and returned with my rifle, minus the scope.

 

“There’s a scope too. Check the floor?” I requested. Squires vanished again and returned.

 

“Sorry. Looks like he dropped it.” It at least one of the lenses was broken. Bad luck. I purchased that glass because I don’t have the facilities to make optical glass. I whistled.

 

“I’ll send the department the repair bill,” I offered rather than make a big stink.

 

“Sure. You do that. Forward me that video and I… damn it. You’ll need to have your van printed for evidence or I’ll have to let him go.”

 

“Isn’t the video enough?” I asked him.

 

“He’d weasel out in court. IA was investigating him for industrial espionage for Atlas. They would probably get him a lawyer that could get him off and reinstated without solid physical evidence.”

 

I sighed.

 

“I’ll call a ride.”

 

“Not many cabbies are going to want to pick up a guy carrying that many guns,” pointed out the detective. He was right.

 

Then I spotted something wonderful. An uptight blonde with tense, upright posture, a little curl of hair, and glasses. She was carrying a riding crop. I approached her, tucking the scope into a pocket and extracting the cloth rifle sling from the storage space into the butt, attached it to the connectors and slung it over a shoulder. My battle rifle was twelve pounds, so this was a relief for my arms.

 

“Glynda Goodwich I presume?” I asked her. She turned to regard my lack of uniform or badge, and quirked a sculpted eyebrow at my rifle and SMG.

 

“Aren’t you a civilian? This is a crime scene,” she warned. Up close she resembled Charlize Theron in the 1990’s, before she hit the wall and lost her mind. Back when she was blonde perfection. Only with glasses.

 

“I was called in to examine some property, but it wasn’t stolen. Then some other stuff happened and the police need my vehicle as evidence in a crime that happened while I was helping the detective. I need a lift back to my factory. And I can’t exactly call a cab.”

 

“And why would you be speaking to me about that?” asked Glynda with disinterest.

 

“You’re going to be visiting the rest of the expressway while documenting the damages for the Beacon damage fund. It happens to be nearby where my warehouse is. Oh. I should introduce myself. I’m John Wrench, owner and proprietor of Aperture Ballistics,” I said, extending my hand. She offered her own perfunctorily.

 

“That’s nice, but get lost,” she answered and shooed me away.

 

“Nice to meet you, Miss Goodwich. Or is it Lovegood?” I answered. She froze, and turned to regard me critically.

 

“Or do you prefer Potter, after your dad?” I asked her. She stared harder.

 

“Is there a particular reason you know those names?” she said quietly, a tone of menace in her voice.

 

“It isn’t hard to figure out. The wand disguised as a bondage toy. The vast array of silently cast spells you can use as part of your ‘semblance’. Your opposition to foolishness and levity, meaning you’ve got Mommy Issues, and your sister is the famous potioneer at that other academy, what was it called? Luna Nova. New Luna, new moon. Good name, really. Also references your mother.”

 

“Why do you know any of this?” she demanded.

 

“From the same planet. I’m an Alien, from Earth. I suppose you are, too. We could probably make babies,” I pointed out. She blushed then. It was deviously effective. If I could swoon I would have.

 

“Seven books, eight movies, and some prequels, though I thought those were pretty bad. I’m not here to drag you back or anything. I got isekaied, kinda mentoring several of your students.”

 

“Who?” she asked, trying to regain control of herself. The blush remained.

 

“Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, and Blake Belladonna,” I answered.

 

“Hmm. Well, you’ve failed spectacularly then. The damages on the expressway and the lost dust will be worth millions of lien.”

 

“Most of which was either destroyed by the White Fang, Roman Torchwick, or Penny Polendina, who is technically an Atlas weapon system and falls under their reparations, not Beacon’s.” Miss Goodwich twitched at this news, and finally regained her calm. The rosy blush I’d been enjoying vanished again.

 

“Aww. And I was liking that look on you.”

 

“Why do you believe you are capable of giving me children?” asked Glynda quietly.

 

“I’m a natural human. No aura. Not a colonist like all these people. I’m like you. We are genetically compatible,” I pointed from myself to her and back again. “Sides, I can see you want to try.” This brought back the blush.

 

“I’ll help you with the observations. Want me to video you pointing stuff out?” I asked. “I’ve got drones.”

 

“Fine. This way,” she said and walked ahead of me, which gave me a great view of her hourglass figure. I had thought her in her mid 30s, but that body suggested I subtract five years. She might still be fertile. No wonder my offer floored her. Might be a last chance.”

 

We picked through rubble before finding her car. It was a rental electric, but it was comfortable and slightly luxury. I put my rifle in the trunk, along with one of the drones. We stopped a number of times during the several hour jaunt, noting the damages caused by the rogue paladin piloted by Torchwick, shell damage, ruined cars, a few bloodstains that had to have been bodies, possibly dead bodies, of his victims during the fight. It was grim. I shot a lot of video until my scroll warned me I was nearly out of space. Glynda gave me a website address to upload the raw video footage, which I did, and emptied my memory again, then we shot more for two more hours. I repeated the upload and was starving with hunger. We were in a bad part of Vale, and the skulkers looked warily at me, armed, and Glynda, the famously bad-tempered huntress.

 

“We should visit my factory so I can drop some things off. I need food. What about you?” I asked her.

 

“I don’t see any reputable restaurants, and I wouldn’t trust Junior with food or drinks. He likes knockout drops as a prank. Or sometimes a lot worse,” she warned.

 

“I’ll cook us something. It isn’t cozy, but it’s safe. Here. Stop at the gate,” I warned, hopping out with my SMG in hand, looking around. My alarm pendant buzzed, so I entered the alarm pass-code for the gate and garage door, and followed her in on foot. Shutting and locking the rollup door and system I finally relaxed. I retrieved my prototype rifle from the car trunk and pointed towards the office where my kitchen and cots were placed, away from the electric whirring of my machines, doing their programmed work with mechanical precision. Glynda stared at the dance of robots.

 

“These aren’t Atlas robots are they?” she asked.

 

“My own design. Dr. Merlot has hacked the Atlas code, and has access to override them any time he wishes. If your communication tower gets a burglar during the Vytal dance, that’s to inject the virus that will take over all the Atlas battleships and combat robots to attack people. My stuff is immune.”

 

“Really. That sounds quite fanciful Mr. Wrench. Or shall I call you John? Or is it Bob?” she questioned, holding up a copy of my ID for Vale.

 

“Well, telling people to call me Jo-Bob just sounds so backwoods, doesn’t it?” I answered.

 

“So, what are you going to cook for me?” Glynda asked, crossing her legs in the chair she had settled into, like a better version of that one scene in Basic Instinct. Another blonde she resembled.

 

I checked my mini-fridge, finding a pork chop and a bunch of veggies that were still fresh. There was rice and seasonings. And I could make gravy.

 

“Pork with fried rice,” I answered and got cooking, slicing onions, peppers, carrots, and celery for the heating frying pan with oil. I covered for a minute, then shifted their contents into a bowl temporarily, then added more oil and a cup of white rice to turn semi-translucent from heat, then white. I added chicken broth and the veggies and chopped up pork and seasonings to simmer. I extracted two cold beers, nothing fancy, but cold and offered one to Glynda. She nodded and I opened it, placing it before her.

 

“To the disaster. It could have been worse,” I suggested. She nodded grimly at my assessment. The insurance adjusters would have to decipher the damages and assign blame, but I’d probably saved Beacon around 20 million lien today. I messaged Councilman Winchester about his weapons, and he called immediately.

 

“Yes, they’ve been recovered. The crates were sealed. They weren’t used by the White Fang during this tragedy. The police have agreed to turn them over to your men. Yes, that’s right. Yes, I agree, Councilman. Of course. Good evening,” I finished and hung up the scroll-phone.

 

“So you brings my students here and what?” she asked, sipping from her beer.

 

“They assemble guns, and I pay them for their work.”

 

“Where does the mentoring come in?” Glynda asked.

 

“Yang has issues with her mother. Ruby didn’t know who her Dad really was. Blake has boyfriend issues, which should be solved now that she’s finally met Sun.”

 

“Who?” Glynda asked.

 

“Sun Wukong. Monkey faunus from Mistral. He resembles Jaune Arc, but never wears a shirt.”

 

“Ah, Mister Arc. Yes. I remember his father when I attended school. He’s already graduated by the time I got there, but his trophies were in various locations, and the videos of his skill were sometimes used in lectures.”

 

“Presumably you are aware of the nature of Mister Arc’s training?” I asked her. Glynda paused, the nodded slightly.

 

“Ozpin insisted despite the authenticity being in question at the time.”

 

“He does have a very useful family semblance, once he activates it. Or did he at in Forever Fall when slaying the Ursa Major?” I confirmed. She nodded. Just like canon.

 

“It’s Pyrrha and the girl in your basement which has me conflicted. The spies sent to Beacon are obvious, so you know about them, but I worry that Ozpin’s depression might make him cocky and think he can defeat them as needed, maybe underestimating the cost to others? Miss Nikos is in love, Glynda. She shouldn’t be forced to choose between love and duty. That isn’t right,” I insisted. Glynda sipped her beer, thinking. The chilled bottle beaded in condensation. I sipped my own, thinking too.

 

“I admit to being concerned about the effect of losing Miss Nikos on the Arc bloodline. He might not recover for years. While he has a number of sisters capable of bearing many hunters or huntresses, he’s the one with the Arc Semblance. Do you think the rice is ready?” Glynda asked me.

 

“Eight more minutes,” I answered with a glance at the pot venting steam around the lid.

 

“Do you think you can show me to your restroom?” Glynda asked. I directed her on unsteady feet. Perhaps beer on an empty stomach was a risky notion, but we were both feeling better now, and I don’t want memories of that expressway on my mind while I’m eating with a beautiful woman.

 

She emerged a few minutes later, face washed clean. I used the room too, washing off the grit and smoke from myself. Much better.

 

The rice was ready. I served heaping portions on two plates.

 

After dinner there was kissing, removal of clothes, and a serious attempt at removing the stick. With any luck Glynda would have a bun in the oven, too. I do wish I owned a bigger bed instead of two cots, however.

 

It was two days before the Vale Police told me they were ready to release my truck from impound, where they’d hauled it for their whole evidence procedure. The battery was dead, of course. I plugged in a fuel cell and started that up so I could limp off the lot before the evil pricks could charge me for illegal parking.

 

I managed to stop at a supermarket in a safe area and picked up a bunch of groceries and ordered a bed. I’d cleared a space on the second floor and walled in the loft, installed lighting and such, and basically made a decent bedroom so when Glynda visited again I could give her a better time. It had been months since my last woman, actually before arriving on Remnant… did that mean I’d lost my virginity to Glynda? I would be sure to mention it to her later. I think she would laugh.

 

I started getting messages on my scroll while I was finishing up. It was Yang.

 

“What did you do?” Yang wrote on the messaging app, Pictograph.

 

“Could you be more specific? It has been a busy few weeks,” I answered in my slow typing.

 

“Glynda won’t stop smiling, Blake won’t either, and I get the idea you know why. So spill!” she responded a moment later.

 

“There was a stick, and I removed it. Also, Blake has probably started dating Sun. Her balance has been restored.”

 

“Balance? What stick? You aren’t making sense,” Yang complained via app.

 

“Ask her when you two are alone. And somewhere she can laugh,” I suggested. There was a long delay, so I got back to work. Sometime later my phone started beeping with messages. Scroll. I still think of this thing as a phone, but they call them scrolls here.

 

“I can believe you! How?” Yang asked.

 

“Spent the day together. Gave her a beer. Fed her dinner. Shared a secret.”

 

“So you aren’t gay alien after all?” Yang wrote.

 

“I am alien, but not gay. Yang, you’re cute as hell, but you’re also eight years my junior. Where I come from they put men in jail for taking advantage of girls like you, no matter how willing.”

 

“Besides,” I added. “Your dad and uncle both threatened my life if I looked at you funny.”

 

“Oh. Well, that would do it. Pops and Unc know how to use a shotgun and a shovel.”

 

“So you gonna chase Jaune like your sister, Pyrrha, Weiss, and bunnygirl?” I asked her.

 

“What? Sis wants vomit boy? I knew about Pyrrha, but how you figure Weiss? She hates him.”

 

“Never heard ‘the lady doth protest too much’? All that squawking to keep his attention on her, rather than just step back and let him lose interest? That’s suspicious. Besides, Blake might have gone for him too if I hadn’t told her about Sun ahead of time.”

 

“Why are you advising my partner on her sex life?” Yang wrote.

 

“She had a steady lover. Then she got cut off and was in withdrawal. You’re a virgin so you don’t understand, but when you get a real boyfriend and go raw? You’ll understand then.”

 

“That is so condescending!” Yang complained.

 

“Hug Jaune when you’re sweaty and almost naked together, like after a workout. Let his sweat soak in. You’ll feel different the next day. Well, more than just sweaty and smelly.”

 

“I’m not getting in the middle of that love hexagon. And how’d you know about Velvet?”

 

“Alien, remember. Also, there’s going to be a food fight soon, and then you’ll be heading for a scouting mission at Mountain Glen. Carry extra ammo. Go armed for bear… I mean Ursa. And warn Doctor Oobleck to carry extra ammo for his weapon. Port too. Make Ruby promise not to drop Crescent Rose, and not to jump down any holes she can’t see the bottom, even if she’s chasing after Zwei. He can take care of himself.”

 

“That’s specific. Very specific. Anything else?” she wrote sarcastically.

 

“Well, if you meet a grinning midget, fight defensively. She’s WAY better than you. And an assassin who can use illusions, works with Torchwick. Focus on the bombs on the train cars, and be ready to break them loose as quick as you can. Tell Blake to visit me soon. I have the upgrade for her weapon ready. OUT.”

 

And then I sent the long message. There were a lot of beeps after that, but I ignored them and continued on my work, using the specifications I’d scanned on Blake’s weapon to upgrade her pistol from the 32 magnum to the 10mm, around four times the muzzle energy. Four times more recoil, but actually able to kill grimm or white fang instead of tickle their aura. When she faces Adam next time she might not just get stabbed. He might kill her.

 

I got a few messages from Ruby and Blake two days later that the food fight had happened. Glynda also canceled our date, though she showed up anyway and demanded I relax her. So I did, then we ate dinner and sipped a passable champagne, a gift from Councilman Winchester for saving his guns from those thieving police. I fed us something while we recovered our strength, then we went at it again and slept together.

 

Hugging Glynda in her sleep, as curvy and buxom as she is, is actually nice, very restful. We made gentle love the next morning and I cooked her breakfast while she used my small and very terrible cold shower on the shop floor. It is meant for chemical washing in emergencies, but it works to get clean too. It isn’t nice, but it will rinse the stink off. Speaking of, I smell like a cathouse. I ate with her, then went and used it myself, getting squeaky clean. Dried and dressed, I made sure she had my emergency contact numbers and IFF code so my alarm wouldn’t fire on her. It was keyed to her appearance, so anybody else trying to use it would get pepperballs and tasers. She left.

 

I got back to installing the reloader system for my heavy drones, which run on fuel rather than batteries, and would fly to several thousand feet and use my autotargeting software on whatever I designated, from grimm to atlas robots to white fang masks. If they don’t prevent the virus, then I’m going to have to shoot down some rogue gunships with my own, while killing grimm and attacking terminator bots. I don’t have nearly as many as I want. I have two. I’d need around sixty to make any kind of real impact in the coming battle, but I might get lucky, and the reload system works. I mounted my production model 5 rifles on the underside of the drone, setup to hang down. When near the ground the landing struts would lower and prevent the weight of the drone from crushing my guns. The cameras were run by my primitive expert system, what the locals call AI. It is mostly able to do shape recognition with some overrides. It won’t fire on civilians with furry ears, for example. If the white fang ditch their masks during the fight, they are safe from my drones. I had to draw the line somewhere, and what are the odds the grunts even know what Adam is planning? The true believers on the train? Sure. They expect to die. Will expect.

 

It is only another day. I barely have time to finish preparing. I finished installing armor plate cupola welded to a frame on my roof, complete with overhead shield with gun ports to fire at nevermore, and cameras for the turret I am going to mount up there next. Because, for some reason, this world doesn’t have Hitler’s Typewriter, which all the militaries of the world copied after World War Two because it was just that good. Even the American M60 is a direct copy with 80% shared parts. My test firings indicated it was working as expected, and I did have experience with this weapon from Basic and AIT, even if my expertise is the GAU-8. The anti-tank rotary cannon by General Dynamics was a beast of many parts, but it was good at getting hits at a couple miles on main battle tanks and shredding columns of the things in desert warfare. If I had one of those even the Council wouldn’t be able to protect me. But it would chew through Ironwood’s battleship like cardboard in the rain. I was not looking forward to meeting him. Later, he would go mad with power and try to kill the population of Atlas in order to save them. Tried to turn that cold land into My Lai village.

 

There are downsides to being a veteran Air Force mechanic. Knowing my history is one of them.

 

I put quad 60’s in my turret and loaded up the belts so they would feed properly from the cannister of four thousand rounds below. Hopefully. Hopefully I wouldn’t need it. I’d already reinforced all the ground level corrugated iron with sheets of armor plate coated in anti-spall so a serious hit wouldn’t shatter shrapnel inwards and kill me in my sleep. I’d put more around my bed, and the roof over it. The building weighed more, thanks to these additions, but my weapons were selling well. Many private citizens in Vale were making purchases for protection, probably sensing the tension building. They weren’t wrong. Stuff is happening outside the walls. My orders for remote villages would increase, or sometimes final delivery would receive no confirmation and the Vale military would confirm the settlement had been lost. My guns were too late. They went to another home, anxious and desperate for what I had to sell. I’d backed my main garage door with plate walls on rollers, driven by electric winches. They were slow, but they hauled several hundred pounds each so I could leave or enter without replacing the thin metal roll-up door with something that would require engineering and power to install and run. Non trivial effort for a building that had a lot of security holes, starting with location.

 

I got word that Junior had bought out three gun shops worth of my weapons and distributed them to his Red Axe gang goons, but they were gathered at the club Junior ran, called “The Club”. Yes, a very creative name. His nieces toted Model 1s, saying they liked the extra security. At least that’s what I saw on the local networks.

 

I have a logo on my guns. It is a warthog. Ruby had suggested I use the scythe on the one side and my hammer, for my name, crossed on the other.

 

“You want me to use a hammer and sickle?”

 

“Scythe! It isn’t the same thing.”

 

“Yes, it is bigger. Does the same job. There is a reason I will not use that logo, but I will remember you were the one to suggest it in future, and any time I am feeling depressed, it will make me laugh.”

 

I used the Warthog instead. Much less irritating associations that way. All my guns are marked with this symbol. Even the plastic ones. Just a little thumbing my nose at Atlas.

 

And I’m still the only one who makes gun powder. Everybody else is using low pressure fire dust. My bullets are way faster and hit far harder. It is the difference between black power and WW2 battle rifles.

 

I made sure to get my sleep early, since the problems would start early the next morning, in the dark. My infrared cameras picked up flying grimm in the distance. They also noted that my seismographs were detecting explosions underground, which were getting closer. I set off my air raid siren and sent a warning to Councilman Winchester, giving him the opportunity to warn the Vale council and make them look like heroes leading the defense of the city before the police could respond. The Vale Military got a blip from me too, my report on position and heading for incoming flying grimm and the explosions, asking if there was any kind of infrastructure there, like a subway train route? And what if the train is carrying explosives which are causing this ground shaking and might grimm come from any breaches?

 

I waited for the train to get to a mile from the city walls before I warmed up my heavy drones, with nav lights running and IFF broadcasting and launched. The military opted not to shoot them down. They were launching armed bullhead gunships, which are better than the people carrier ones, armored against small grimm like lancers and smaller nevermore, and began firing on grimm emerging from holes in the ground. HEAP, high explosive anti-personnel, missiles and guided rockets did a number on grimm and white fang trying to emerge to attack ordinary citizens of Vale. My drones killed a few white fang, though it only seemed to wound a really big guy with a chainsaw. They were more effective on Ursa, gutting them longways and killing them instantly. It was ugly, but war often is. I observed from my control room, directing and correcting the AI for my drones before retrieving them when the worst was over and the police were mopping up the last grimm stragglers. I returned my drones to their roof hanger and went to refuel and rearm them, checking for any obvious mechanical issues I could spot. Or damage. I found a bullet hole through a spar. Some person had fired on my drones. Typical Vale ignoramuses.

 

Hopefully the kids would survive that whole mess. I knew from the anime it was constant close calls and near hits in the train fight, and explosives in enclosed spaces are no joke. The city of Vale would be cleaning up this mess for months.