A New Hope Nier

By the time I had purged the medical bay and the Prophet's quarters, Samus and Qrow had likewise locked down and purged their own facilities. And I was just mentally and emotionally exhausted after all the killing.

Killing Machine Lifeforms, Grimm, and Space Pirates was a very different thing from killing the Covenant forces. Some of them could and did beg for their lives saying things like they had never even been on a human planet, they never hurt my kind. And of course, the real kicker is how they begged to be able to simply go back to their families.

While I leaned against one of the walls of the Bridge watching my YoRHa androids interfacing with the ship's systems to fully take control of and begin moving the ship onto Reach and our staging grounds. I heard a gruff voice speak up beside me as Qrow likewise leaned against the wall.

"It never gets easier... And it never should." He spoke slowly and I took a breath and nodded as he continued. "It's the mental pain and hesitation of doing what needs to be done, that keeps you and others from becoming a machine who just sees people as numbers or pawns." 

Qrow slapped his large flask onto my chest and he bluntly said. "Swallow down some of that angst kid. You got a good thing going for ya, and Ruby is excited to get back to Beacon with you." 

I couldn't help a snort at his terrible pep talk which boiled down to. 'Swallow the bullshit down with some poison to drown it out like a man... Oh, and you also got a cutie waiting for you back home with a welcoming smile and hug so quit being a bitch.'

Popping open the cap I took a hearty swing of the fucking paint thinner that made my throat lose all its mucus and even clean my damn nostrils with my head rapidly shaking some tears away as I held in a series of coughs as I screwed back back on the flask to hand it back over to Qrow while he chuckled.

"Heh, should have seen Yang a couple of years ago. She thought she was hot shit getting into Taiyang's liquor cabinet and getting drunk with her buddies... The joke on her is that my booze is literally illegal Haha!"

I could definitely see Yang the party girl getting utterly shit-faced as I could already feel my blood seemingly warming up from that hearty chug of that damned concoction and idly I had a bad thought. 'Shit the last time I got wasted... I ran over to give Salem a booty call, what horrible incident could I get up to in Halo? Would drunk me try to tap a Gravemind or something?'

"She got super sick I am guessing?" I responded and Qrow chuckled as he nodded and said with some dark humour in his voice.

"Oh yeah... She got majorly fucked up and had the whole multi-step process in fact. She was having fun, got sick, and then got even more sick... And then came the best part, when you are so sick that you can't puke anymore up so you are just hugging the toilet while your stomach is giving your abs the greatest cut with its clenching."

After chuckling at that scene Qrow then decided it was perfectly fair to share the time that Ruby got utterly sick after eating two whole tubs of cookie dough in one movie night.

I was feeling a good bit better after the laughs and bro talk with Qrow but one thing was eating at me. "So Qrow, why are you here? Aren't you Ozpin's reaper or whatever?" I asked dryly.

Qrow gave me a bland look before he retorted. "Ozpins millennia-long war with Salem has ended dumbass... You mind fucked his apocalyptic ex-wife into a Stepford wife who has a famous video channel about stitching together children's clothes that's boosted by your androids tweaking the video channel algorithm. Then you went ahead and got rid of the vast majority of the Grimm Pools that were exposed to the air, so while Ozzy is moping around I decided to continue doing what I do best." He finished while tapping his scythe/sword/rifle combo weapon in clear meaning as to what he meant.

'A warrior goes where he needs to fight.' I thought nodding and then Qrow took a breath and spoke. "Jake, I got a favor to ask of you." 

I raised an eyebrow as Qrow looked at me seriously as he spoke. "I ask that you use your resources on Remnant to deal with my bandit sister. She needs to be brought in even if she has been in hiding since you brought out your Apps and gave all of Remnant signal access so they can communicate." 

'Raven Branwen huh... Well, that's a name I hadn't thought of for a good bit.' I thought as I was also reminded how Raven was also Yang's mother. But regardless I asked the pressing question. "And what do you mean by bringing her in? She can teleport, a jail cell isn't going to do much for keeping her on the straight and narrow." I said bluntly.

And Qrow nodded as he took a breath and responded coldly. "I am aware... Hence I want her to be outfitted with the same implants you slotted into Salem's broken little terrorist and her sycophant who wanted to burn the world to ashes and is now your personal femme fatale murder machine." 

My lips twitched as I couldn't help but give Qrow a look in an obvious 'What the hell?' But he shrugged and stated flatly. "I have little care for my sister to put bluntly, I want the Branwen bandit clan to not be in the history books with Grimm numbers receding... So capture her, let Yang probably give her a good punch to the jaw and then she can be used as another black ops agent with her semblance being a potent tool to be used in YoRHa."

And as though to seal the deal White spoke out through my comms unit to both Qrow and myself to hear. "We already have traced Raven Branwen's position in Mistral. Whether Jake goes or not, we could have units on her position in less than five minutes."

'This is why androids are scary... They have the endless efficiency of perfectly tuned machines and entirely too damned much information.

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