The Seven spent the next few hours building their dossiers. As Locke mentioned, going after Nightmare meant finding all his associates as well. It wasn’t enough to just go after him - his entire outfit needed to be removed.
To do that, they pulled together all kinds of information gathered from all sorts of sources, and sifted through the things they needed - names, associates, places they frequented, and so on.
By the end, they had built a rather long list of names.
Nightmare, of course, along with 21 of his associates. All of them were refugee players, and were stronger, tougher, and smarter. Well, supposedly smarter, anyway.
Eva surmised that they had played Bellum Aeterna for years, and were incredibly familiar with each other. They no doubt worked very well toge
Do you think you could make a deal with the Toymaker?
After they turned in the thugs for their bounties, the Seven took the very next shuttle to Venus. They were determined to do right by Amal. When she admitted that she and Jionna hadn’t returned, they realized that they needed to go back. Eva reasoned that they needed to collect evidence of Nightmare’s wrongdoing. Throughout this whole process, Eva and Miko had their EyeCasts following and recording them. It unnerved the others, but they insisted that it was necessary for their line of work. That they were necessary for their evidence. It was certainly true, but not the whole truth. More importantly however, they needed to come to the farm to help patch things up - mostly Amal’s wounded heart. Plus Eva had a hunch.
Amal sat on the roof of one of the silos on the farm. She peered through an optical monoscope at the land around her. As she scanned the horizon, she caught sight of a frigate in the distance. It was accompanied by a handful of fighters. They were all descending carefully. The readings on her monoscope showed that the ships were roughly ten thousand meters away. It was further than even simple sensors could pick up. And certainly further than what the naked eye could see. Amal immediately told the rest of her team through her DI. --- Amal: You were right. Nightmare and his gang really showed up.
Nightmare found himself visibly shaking and sweating after hearing Eva’s voice. He had only run into her twice before, and she had shook him to his core. He always won, except against her. His goons - the ones who were still alive anyway - looked at him for direction. They were in a serious mess and needed real leadership to get out of it. But they all knew deep down that Nightmare wasn’t a real leader. He was the kind of person who gave in to his base temptations, and there was a certain magnetism in that. They followed him so they too could indulge in those base feelings. They spent years harassing gamers for fun.
After everything was said and done, the Seven went back to their rented office. It was their intent to clean up, split the bounty, then hang up their hats. At least for the time being. Each had gotten nearly 45k out of all the bounties they turned in. It certainly wasn’t a bad sum at all. Especially for less than a week’s worth of work. They spent far less than that on their expenses. On top of that, they had taken Nightmare’s guns, armor, and ships away as well. Technically, they weren’t supposed to be able to do that. Technically, that was theft. Technically, they didn’t care. So somehow those ships ended up getting fenced through grey markets until they vanished completely. Though the paid sum was much les
Eva sat down on the grass and leaned up on a stout tree. She decided to relax at one of the parks on Helios, as it seemed nice out. Plus she needed the freshest air possible, and that could only be found near plants. The digital sky was a bright blue, with hardly any clouds to be seen. The digital version of Sol shone brightly. It was unchained and unrestricted by the trappings of humanity. For a moment, she felt as though she was back on Earth. But that moment passed by quickly. Eva’s EyeCast hovered in front of her, its dark lens reflected her pale face back to her. She was still getting used to it. Well, as best she could, anyway. She had never been much of a fan of cameras, unless she was behind one. When
Commander Chase's handsome visage occupied Eva's comms display. He was certainly finely-chiseled and a man of discipline. She was always glad to see him onscreen. "I'm not interrupting you, am I?" he asked. "You seem a little preoccupied." Eva shook her head as she perforated another bandit fighter. It crashed into the rocky ground below. Both she and Miko had taken a contract to help defend a small planetary colony in a nearby system. The colony had been constantly getting hounded by bandits, and so the two of them decided to chip in their expertise. They helped the colony's marshal to repel a number of attacks, then subsequently went on the offensive and attacked the bandit's base of operations. The two of them were cu
The Navy frigate carefully maneuvered its way through a dense asteroid field. Although it was small enough to dart around in between them, a single hit would have easily crippled the ship. It was escorted by a half dozen fighter pilots, all of whom kept their eyes peeled for trouble. After all, within this dense field of rock, their sensors were greatly reduced. The asteroids themselves barely moved, and those that did typically spun slowly in place. In truth, the largest dangers in an asteroid field were often the things that hid behind them. Usually it was pirates or creatures. Sometimes, it was worse. Though they didn’t truly expect any trouble out here, it was better to be prepared than not. Any mistake navigating through this mess would cost them their lives.
“And that sums up the fifty-seven basic control mechanisms for the Prometheus Core,” said the Admiral. “Over the course of the next six cycles, we will go over the advanced control mechanisms.” Admiral Chase had lectured them on the core they were going to be testing. The display behind her was filled with technical documentation, blueprints, and data readouts regarding the core itself. Eva was almost in tears. Tiamat’s Transcendence was in full blast by this point. She thought they were going to go look at the cores, play with them, fly them, that sort of thing. Her heart shuddered and her mind blanked the moment the Admiral’s lecture started. After spending hours on the contract, and hours again on this technical information, Eva felt as though her brain was going