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Zero Unit split into two teams along a narrow stretch of dirt road on top of a small mountain, Dante led one and Titus led the other. Their mission was to make sure than the peasants and farmers could escape the villages without the threat of a gang slaughtering them. Complicating issues was the fact that a military ship from another more developed country crashed, killing the entire crew. Intel said that the farmers especially searched the ship, but the gang took over and may have access to advanced weaponry.

Dante sat and stared over an edge of the cliff, "I think I might actually kill her when we get back." Jill, Chey, and Sere were tossing bullets as close to a rock as they could and betting small amounts to pass the time. Ratchet was admiring her new rifle still, but for the most part she rested on a rock to absorb the sun's heat. Even without knowing the seasons of the planet, the cool air was an indication that winter was approaching, "Hey, Jill... how many villagers were escaping?"

"Uh... didn't say in the report. We just have to wait until they stop coming I guess." Villagers trickled down the road a few at a time in what looked like feudal Japanese clothes. Dante thought he saw a flash of light in the distance, but it may have just been a glare from the sun.

The smaller group reported in, "Are there people still coming? I'm bored to tears down here and Miss Star is fidgeting."

Dante sighed, "Yeah. This is more like punishment than a reward."

"How dare you!"

A female's voice attracted attention from everyone, "Hold up, things may have taken a turn here." She was a thin mink with white fur. Her clothing was the same as the others, but a chest and shoulder strap caught Dante's attention more. It was military, designed to hold grenades, spare ammunition, and a pistol, "Where did you get that?"

She took a defensive stance and reached for a katana tied to her back, "That is none of your business!" An older woman tried to calm her, "These arrogant fools think us a burden! Do you trust them to keep us safe?! I see no difference from them and the bandits!"

"Hey! I doubt bandits can design and build a ship with custom weapons capable of tearing through every armor in the known universe." Sere tossed a bullet, "Dammit."

"She's right. Bandits and gangs are nothing, if anything you're the biggest threat we've seen all day. Not to say that you pose a threat." Dante leaned against a rock jutting out from the ground, "Any of my crew could kill you with nothing but a stick."

"Why you-"

"On second thought, the crippling boredom may be a larger threat than you. Move along."

She drew her blade and pointed it at Dante, "I will not stand such slander!"

"Jill, Anima feels tired so you tell her what we're all thinking."

Jill tossed her last bullet, "Boo-yah! Fifty credits from both of you! Alrighty... you're acting too defensive, as though you're trying to make something right. Perhaps you watched a family member die and couldn't save them, but more likely you were part of that gang, or at least related to a member." Jill sat down and Chey handed her some of the collected bullets.

The woman's scowl couldn't hide the trembling in her lip, "See? You're transparent, so either go follow the evacuation route or go back and get killed." Dante sighed loudly, "Isa is getting a minimum two bullets in the knee for this."

"Hey Dante, you think the Goddess has some books she's looking for? It's boring, but they're pretty fast missions. Remember last time?"

"Yes Chey, we all remember last time." On the last collection she asked of Zero Unit, a rare collector hired other mercenaries to gather the books as soon as her learned of the Goddess' order. Chey took the lead and used what some would call "excessive" explosives. If Dante and Cratis didn't shove the crate out of harms way in time, they would have been annihilated.

"I'm still here you-"

"Yeah, we know, but you're kinda lame." Ratchet shivered as a cold breeze passed, "Can we just hurry this up? Like... kill the gang?"

"You might get your chance." The remaining villagers and farmers ran as quickly as they could, dropping a lot of what they carried with them in order to escape from what Dante believed to be the gang. They wore bits and pieces of military armor which had been damaged in the crash and carried standard rifles and pistols. They were thirty strong, "Hey, Titus... we win."

"Dammit!" Dante and Titus flipped to determine position, Dante won closer to the villages, Titus got the second checkpoint where there was no chance of an attack, "How many are there?"

"Thirty... one." The mink held her katana in a defensive posed and retreated behind a dead tree for cover. Jill, Chey, and Sere didn't budge, but Ratchet at least looked up, "Oh come now, what use is a leader that hides behind a meat shield?"

"I got it, I got it..." Sere stood up and opened an aluminum case, "I'm down 1,000 credits anyway." She slowly set up a heavy-duty tripod and set a modified Sere Cannon on top.

Another female voice came from behind the wall of men, "Those villagers belong to me, and those fancy guns you have? Mine too." She sounded more mature than the mink that tried to pick a fight, "Kill 'em all!"

"Chey."

"Ahead of you." An Angel Grenade set up a wall which reflected the bullets back, killing most of the gang members. Some of them ducked, but their leader was a different story. She was tall with white fur, a skirt which seemed nothing more than the bottom of a robe, and a brown strip of cloth around her ridiculous bosom. She wielded a katana as long as her body and easily blocked the reflected bullets.

"I think I'm in love." Dante stood up, intrigued by the display of skill.

"Hey, why does your sister have tits bigger than her head?" Ratchet aimed her rifle at the gang leader.

"How did you...?"

Sere stood at her cannon, "You two are the only ones with white fur and those swords... it wasn't that hard to figure out."

Dante cracked his knuckles, "You all sit by, at most take out the survivors. She's all mine." He handed his rifle and pistol to Sere, but didn't discard Anima, "You there, what's your name?"

"Smooth-skin, it's polite to introduce yourself first. I don't have time for chumps."

"My apologies. I'm Dante, Captain of the Albatross, Commander of Zero Unit, One of the leaders of Fallen Sky."

"So a mercenary punk that got lucky..."

Jill cleared her throat, "I've got this one. Dante currently has 20,000 confirmed kills and between 40,000 and 100,000 unconfirmed kills. That's just him." She tossed another bullet, "Hey! Pay up Chey!"

"I swear, you're too good at this."

Jill smiled, "Part of being a scout is knowing the terrain and making every shot count."

Dante shook his head, "Tell me your name. I'd rather not kill someone as skilled as yourself without knowing what to put on your grave marker."

She bowed, "Victoria. I believe you've met my sister already, Jean. I lead this gang, we take what we need to survive."

"Liar!" Jean stepped from behind the tree just as the Angel Grenade detonated, "You kill for riches!"

"Jean, you know better than that. If it wasn't for them, we wouldn't need to resort to such violence."

Jean was shaking, "There were other ways... you didn't have to..."

Dante put a hand on Jean's shoulder, "I have an idea of who 'them' are, but hindsight is 20/20 as is judging based on morality. Victoria, while I can't necessarily agree with your actions, I don't condemn them. Hell, I was in your position years back on my home planet."

"It's either you or them, right?"

"Pretty much." Dante stepped forward, "I think I want to fight you, how about it? No weapons, no limits."

Jean raised her sword to cut Dante, but Ratchet shot it from her hand, "Now now, behave. Morals are nice, but practicality sometimes asks for more."

Dante opened his wrist computer, "Hey Titus, be careful around the paying company. Get Angel to keep an eye on the skies." He rolled his head on his shoulders, "How about it?"

Victoria sheathed her massive blade and set it on the ground, "Sounds like a blast. Men! Stand aside." Her stance was formed over years of training, while Dante's stance was formed from survival. They charged at each other.

Victoria was able to parry most of Dante's punches while Dante was able to block or avoid most of Victoria's kicks. They were evenly matched in hand to hand combat, which is exactly what he wanted. For every blow that one landed, the other countered just as hard. Minutes passed but the intensity had not faded.

Eventually, on of the gang members tried to take aim at Dante, "Not that's not playing fair!" Sere pulled the trigger on her cannon, released a thick beam of energy which cut through the man completely, she then dragged it across all of the gang members. Dante dove under the beam while Victoria barely dropped to the ground in time. The remaining gang members tried to do the same, but Sere tracked their movements.

Victoria's jaw dropped open when the reality set in. A single shot from a single weapon could have easily wiped out her entire gang, including her. It was almost too much to take in. Then she felt the tip of Dante's boot slam into the bottom of her jaw with the force of a rocket. The pain faded fast, as did the light around her, "Like I said, fun." Dante dusted himself off and picked up the large sword, "Chey, bind her and set her against that rock."

Chey did as she was asked as the others sat around hoping something more interesting would happen, "Dante, this is Titus. A few guys stopped by asking if we were done yet. Angel reported back, apparently there are some bombers ready to take off."

"Yeah... they still there?"

"Yep."

"Tell them the gang was wiped out, no need to carpet bomb the villages and farms."

Jean took a step back, "What did you say?!"

Dante sat down on the dirt, "Are you kidding? Why would you think some rich corporation would care about the lives of some petty farmers? This was no more than a ruse to clear out the area for the least possible PR disaster. For all of your hate of your sister... she was right in this situation."

Jean retrieved her sword which had lodged itself into the ground, "No she wasn't!"

"There were only two possibilities, and both of you took different paths. You took the path that tried to give everyone a little and keep the status quo. Morally debatable, but this is what many people call peace. It also left you completely unarmed and unaware of what was about to happen. Victoria took the path of arming the most skilled and keeping them well fed and trained to fight against the real threat. Just as debatable, but her path would have given all of you the best chance of living at the cost of minimal lives. Of course... the reality isn't as clear."

"What Dante means... is that... my path would have... fought back... but still lost." Victoria was waking up, "Hate me... if you want... I did it... for the right reasons..."

"Dante, they're coming towards you! Not waiting for full evacuation!"

Dante yawned, "Alright. Titus, get back to the Albatross, open fire. We'll hold them off from here." Ratchet jumped to the ground and aimed into the distance as Sere changed directions of her cannon. Jill and Chey readied their Angel Grenades and took a position to help reload both Ratchet and Sere, "I may not like people, but I hate the ones that try to betray me more. Just ask the former Fallen Sky."

Victoria snapped to her feet and kicked the katana out of Jean's hands. She jumped and moved her bound hands to her front while grabbing the sword, then dropped it as Dante kneed her in the gut and gripped the back of her neck tightly, "We have to flee!"

"Just watch."

Ratchet was the first to fire, and in the distance a black speck slowly fell to the ground, "One ship down."

"Thirty seconds to firing range." Sere aimed her cannon as Ratchet took down another ship, "Unarmored bombers... they were expecting no resistance..."

"Angel, why haven't you taken any out yet? You're losing to a sniper."

"Ground troops were moving in, I took them as a priority. Be with you shortly." The black specks were bigger now

Dante lifted Victoria to her feet, "This is how you win a fight. Not with stronger weapons, but will skill and training. But you already knew that." Ratchet took down one more ship before the Albatross took down the remaining ten bombers in mere seconds, "That and an AI that hates to disappoint."

The Albatross landed on a wide stretch of the road and the airlock opened, "What are we gonna do with those two?"

"Jean is useless, but Victoria seems like another me. Terrifying, but if she settles down she could be an asset."

Victoria snorted, "You'd trust me?"

Dante looked at the burning piles of steel in the distance, "I don't trust anyone that can kill with their bare hands, but you have skill."

"So what, you don't trust yourself?"

"Haven't so far. Still her in the cell, Jean is free to do what she wants."

The younger sister picked up her sword again, "What are you going to do with my sister?"

Dante shrugged, "See if she wants to command some mercenaries, then see if she's capable. If not, I can't have a killer like her roaming free."

Jean looked at Victoria, who seemed quite content, "Sister... what should I do?"

"If you can get your act together, you could come with me. I may be a killer, but I still know how to respect a real warrior." She slowly walked onto the Albatross at gunpoint, and Jean followed quickly.

Angel spoke over the speakers, "Dante, you know this will only end with stares and jealousy, correct?"

Dante checked his weapons, "Take us back, we got paid upfront so no need to worry about explaining our actions. Besides, Isa has a lot to explain to me, and Mira won't sweet talk me this time."

Victoria was still in a hall, "Who is Isa?"

Titus poked her back with his shotgun, "One of the other leaders, she sent us on this boring mission as a 'reward.' I've never been so bored."

Jean looked to Miss Star, "This was a boring mission to you?"

"Kid, you have no idea. We could have been asleep and nothing bad would have happened."

Victoria smiled, "Dante, I have a proposal. I swear my loyalty to you and you alone, and I get to join your team. I want a good fight. One where we may not come out alive."

"Titus, if you're wondering, that's called 'game.' I apparently have too much of it." Dante poured himself a drink at the fully stocked bar, "Well, if you're serious about it then I have no real objections. You will need to learn how to use a gun."

"Are you drunk?!" Jean was shocked.

Chey patted her on the head, "You poor, poor ignorant young adult. A drink before a fight is a good thing. Hell, one time we all got trashed and took out a group of renegade soldiers. So much fire and property damage..."