Bobby had replied: <<Yes, and that's good, because I'm still driving this car naked. We are driving back towards the commotion - tell me if you need support or an escape car.>>

"Mischief managed," Mato whispers to himself and/or Raven if she's manifested nearby at the time.

<<Crimson Crush just wasted the Halloweeners>> Mato announces. <<They downed dozens of them.>>

Mato briefly wonders if the two Halloweeners that he and Tamarind KO'd were spared the onslaught for being prone on the ground. Plus, Mato has their Molotovs so he knows those didn't go off in their faces.

He pulls out his Transys Avalon and tries to tag the flying eye but doesn't do a great job of it.

<<Let's see if we can destroy this card to make sure nobody realizes that it's a fake.>>

Mato briefly daydreams about shooting the drone out of the sky like Ace Holt in the trids, but he knows that's not really practical. He'll follow on foot if he can, and depend on Tamarind if he cannot.

Before he goes, Mato tries to see how the Crimson Guard are reacting to all the carnage.

@Mato, The Crimson guard, is not visibly supportive of the effort. However, he would probably later learn from Raven can confirm that he used his spirits to take down the Molotovs. Mato can see the crimson guard receiving an envelope from Big Stank, and then he leaves on foot. This signals the ugly part of making sure everyone is dead and robbing the corpses for weapons or vehicles and anything of value, but Mato does not stay for that part; he is after the drone - and he is not alone.

Perhaps fifteen bikers with unaffiliated Haloweener outfits are also struggling to maintain their line of sight to the drone and a few others. These wear the generic black leather and orange bandana but none of the Rager-specific outfits.

<<Stank paid off the Crimson Guard>> Mato reports. <<I wouldn't have thought that they care about money since they get whatever they want from Urubia.>>

The killing and looting of the fallen was a nasty business, but Mato wasn't going to intervene. He had no desire to stick his neck out for the Halloweeners. Quite the opposite, really.

<<In pursuit of the card to make sure the Halloweeners don't get it, there are a dozen or more of them on motorcycles>> he comms to the rest of the team. He leaps off the roof, his hydraulic jacks absorbing the shock of the landing. Then he activates his skimmers and takes off running.

<<Tagging my position>> he tells the Bobby the Naked Driver. <<Not sure how far this chase is going but why don't you set an intercept course.>>

Mato knows that it's a bit ridiculous to be sprinting at motor vehicle speeds while wearing a fine suit, but it can't be helped.

He tries to trail the pack so that he can approach them from behind. Then, his plan depends on the bikers' grouping. If they are spread out, perhaps he can pick them off one-by-one from the rear without those in front noticing the ones behind them falling away. If they're tightly clustered, then maybe he can use one of these Molotovs after all...

@Mato quickly realizes that the bikers seem to be competing against each other, looking at this like some contest or initiatiation.

Mato DNIs to the rest of the team: <<Looks like we have some prospects who haven't been patched in yet. They're competing instead of cooperating.>>

Mato looks for an opportunity to disrupt those at the back of the pack. He's looking for non-lethal takedowns that will hurt a bit. Maybe he could use his retractable climbing claws to slash a tire, or his shock hand to taze a rider. Grabbing them and throwing them - or shoulder-checking them - off their motorcycles is possible too. Ideally he would like to pick them off one or two at a time like he did before, rolling them up from the rear so that the ones in front don't even know - or, if they're competing, don't even care - what's going on.

Bobby still sat behind the steering wheel - naked but invisible - and said:
<<Rachel, can you tell your spirit to materialize in front of the drone and just snatch the card away? That would be the easiest way. Or I can turn into a raptor and fetch it as invisible bird man.>>

<< Is that, where the actual card is now? So, the van team put it there, I assume? Either way, if you can bring me to that drone, I should be able to do that. But I won't be able to find it from the astral, I need to see it. >>

Mato moves quietly and ambushes numerous of recruits. To his surprise, those discovering him treat it as part of the game and bolt. While he is busy, he can see that the drone carefully begins its decent, and it is likely that it would be recovered soon.

<<No idea, but I don't think that BS kept the real card. Frisson's crew likely just managed the handover to the muse before we got to the scene.
Still, it would be a good idea to secure the fake.>>

Bobby accelerated, not quite going beyond acceptable violations of the speed limit but close.

<<Or Frisson kept it somewhere else in the vehicle or on her person>> Mato points out.

He can't talk much because he's in the middle of a chase, which might be a game. If the psycho-wannabes are going to enjoy themselves then he figures he might as well too. Maybe he couldn't go toe-to-toe with a cybermonster like Katya from Pike Hall, but he was good enough to bully some gangers.

He'll race to position himself underneath the drone. If it seems like it might be a close call with another party to retrieve it, he'll either A) use his hydraulic jacks to jump for it, or B) shock hand the competitor, or C) both.

It takes a bit of time for the drone to make its way to the lucky winner. It is a plastic makeshift tent, with a burning barrel emitting terrible stench but enough warm to keep the dweller alive. Mato would have missed the tent for a heap of garbage had he not triangulated the drone path to that place.

There is a kid there dressed in a makeshift ghilee suit out of garbage, he blends almost perfectly with the heaps of garbage around him, but as a bike stops by his tent he stands up holding a brand new and heavily modified sony emperor comlink.

The boy looks at the biker expectingly, and the biker runs toward the kid "You really got it?" he hugs the kid. "Yes, I was lucky, tried several times until I got it right, so it wasn't stealthy or anything, but it would be here any moment."

"I got you two more their owners won't be needing them. Pawn them, don't break them apart. If, I win this test, we'll never go hungry again. Everything would change for us." he says hopefully.
The tween answers- "Thanks Tom - you are the best."

The two look expectedly as the drone closes the gap to them and begins landing.

Mato suddenly realizes that this scene is going to get bloody soon. Though, none of the bikers had a coherent plan to get the card - they all kept a line of sight and waited for someone to get the card so that they could take it violently. He got like four, but there are perhaps ten more and they would be arriving very shortly.

@Tamarind, Tiny is clever; he sends the drone over the lake within the route of numerous delivery drones and surveillance drones, and knowing which drone is the right one is difficult, and Tamarind quickly loses visual contact - but she can tag the drone and then once the kid hacks the drone and changes its course - it becomes evident that it is the tagged drone.

She can observe that it is heading toward a little makeshift dumpster not very far from the shore of the lake... A dumpster may be overselling it, a garbage heap of the kind that is formed when you put a lot of people in place with very little city services. A big pile of plastics and other forms of trash from all sources.

She does not have a line of sight, once the drone descends it is difficult to maintain unless she intercepts but - Tamarind knows enough to instruct a spirit or Raven to the likely location.

<<I might have found the lucky winners>> Mato comms the team.

He tries to get to Tom and the tween as quickly as possible, so that he can talk to them before the rest of the pack arrives. Mato isn't terribly sentimental but if there's one thing that makes him go a bit weak in his cyberknees it's kids, youngsters who never had an opportunity for anything better. He might not realize it at the moment, but the hug has triggered something deep within in, a sense of family that he has an instinctual urge to protect.

"You don't want that!" he yells, racing up at high speed on his skimmers. Who knows what sort of impression an ork in a business suit makes in this situation.

He stops ten meters away. He knows that they'll be shocked and surprised, but he needs to use that to his advantage.

"That card is nothing but death!" he says, pointing in the direction of the drone. He points back to pack of Halloweener cadets and dials up his infrasonic generators to get his point across. "They will tear you limb from limb to get it!"

Mato knows that even if the kids come down with the card and manage to hand it over that Nightmare will call it a fake and likely rip their throats out over the forgery. But Mato doesn't want that intel out in the wild, so he can't use it to bolster his argument.

He dials down the infrasonic generators and softens his voice to try to appear more reasonable. "Give it to me," he says, holding out his black matte cybernetic hand, hoping that the cyber helps convey the seriousness of their situation. In his other hand, he produces a credstick from his pocket. "I'll pay you for it, and I'll take care of them." He juts his chin toward the approaching pack.

<<I'll get it one way or the other. If I destroy it in front of the cadets, it might accomplish Vala's plan.>> This was Melpomene's suggestion. And, yes, she might be manipulating Mato, but the idea seems to work. And it's not like Mato wants a fake card and a horde of Halloweeners haunting him for it.

"You're good with tech? I need people like that. You'll never go hungry again." He spins the credstick in his fingers to drive the point home.

The tween takes a few steps backward, and Tom takes a few steps forward; he thinks about reaching for a pistol but then thinks again. He has no hope in such an engagement an unaugmented normal against a cybered orc, and the business suit suggests money. Tom asks "You got my attention, how much for the card? " he says with the realization that he does not have many options left.

Mato does some quick math, trying to balance a subconscious desire to help with a very conscious desire not to overpay. There's also the balance of not giving them so much that it would make them a target, although in Redmond that could be ¥5. What would be a meaningful sum to Barrens rats?

"I'll pay you a thousand right now," he proposes.

Mato senses the need for some additional tech expertise. With Jawsey gone they've lost their connection to Zwipe, and AM leaves town often enough that they could use a backup option. The hacker club could hack, but SIS needs hardware knowledge too.

"You're good with tech?" he asks the tween, indicating the heavily modified Sony Emperor. "I'll put you two on retainer. ¥500 a month - each - for technical support, plus local knowledge and insights. And I'll toss you the spare tech I come across."

He dials up his infrasonic generators for his final warning. "You do NOT want to work with the Halloweeners, Tom. You are not a psychopath. They will rip your fragging soul out."

Tom signals the tween, which in turn stops the drone mid-air - out of easy reach for now. Having formed some sort of limited leverage, he says, "Perhaps 2k for the card, and if you actually have work for us this month, it is free?" He does not comment about the Halloweeners, he wants to say something but stops himself not wanting to cause a conflict perhaps.

Mato growls and makes sure the infrasonic generators are at their maximum setting.

"They are NOT your fragging friends. They will geek you to get ahead and not think twice about it."

Then he softens again. He doesn't want to rake the kids over the coals more than necessary. He turns the infrasonic generator off.

"2k. Give me your commcode. A good commcode, a reliable one where I can reach you." He points at the heavily-modified Emperor. "In the meantime, make me one of those. I'll get you the Sony for it. You want more, deliver it to me by the end of the month."

Is he corrupting the kids? Will they let their guard down once they have more money than they've ever had before? Is Mato killing them with generosity? Only time will tell.

He taps the credstick against his Transys Avalon to load it with funds, then holds out his hand expectantly for the drone.

Once Mato confirms that he's on the scene, Tamarind can converge on the location. Which is to say, she heads that way in the van, helps the poor fly spy that had lost Mato to go in the right direction, and brings Pelliper 2 out of the delivery drones lanes to head directly to the location -- and to start circling the location, filming and broadcasting to the team what it sees, once it is on scene. Mato may be sharing things from his perspective, but the aerial view might give them a bit more warning of trouble, as well as another 'witness' to the card being destroyed.

She is only able to partially pay attention to what Mato is streaming to the team, due to the distractions of driving through the barrens. But once she picks up that Mato has found some young hardware hackers she sends <<I'll buy the kid some decent tools if it turns out he is any good. I have plenty of work to be done.>>

Now that the chase had stopped, Bobby was able to actually get closer to the pick up location - even faster if Mato came to meet them. So he put a ping on himself and transmitted it to Mato

<<As soon as you have destroyed the card, get your hoop moving in our direction. I'll have the door open for you.>>

<< If that is just the fake, that still leaves the question as to what actually happened with the original. It wasn't in the van, and I couldn't find it in the house, though I only did a cursory search there. >>

The tween makes the drone land in Mato's palm - well, not precisely; it makes it hover so Mato can grab it. "My name is Rat, and I shared the details of my Emperor with you, and that card is worth more than ten times what you paid." he speaks for the first time.

It took a few long minutes to land the drone, and Mato guesstimates that the Haloweeners would be there very soon. In case he needs a crowd, or in case he wants to GTFO.

Mato grabs both the drone and the card with one hand, and with the other hand flips the credstick to Tom since he's standing closer.

"Perhaps," he says to Rat. "But I get paid ¥10K to steal the ¥100K prototype, not ¥100K." A bit of bluster, as Mato is not really a super-criminal shadowrunner.

"Rat, remember that everything of value is a double-edged sword. The more it's worth, the easier it is to just kill you for it rather than pay you for it. Do you really want to put yourselves at the mercy of another man's moral code?"

He keeps a firm grip on the drone so it doesn't fly off again. He'll use his retractable climbing claws to dig into it if he thinks that will help. He wants the card attached to the drone so that the approaching Halloweeners will know he didn't switch out the card.

"You played your hand well: you're alive and you got yourselves a payday. You can call me Mato.

"Now, you might want to lay low for a minute. Things might get hot."

He turns to confront the coming pack. He pulls out the lighter that he took from the Halloweeners earlier.

<<I've got the drone and the card>> he comms the team. <<I'm going to torch it in front of the cadets so they can send word back that it's gone. I'll try to keep it non-lethal since dead men tell no tales. Bobby, if you want in on this then try to leave some of them alive.>>

Mato isn't necessarily looking for a fight but - gangers being gangers - he's willing to box a few ears.

Once Mato pays them, Rat and Tom take off by foot, leaving the Scooter covered with some rudimentary disguise. "got to make that cash disappear before someone takes it." Tom explains.

Shortly after, a rowdy gang of Haloweener cadets arrives at the scene. Seven of them, Mato makes a mental note. He can hear a command, "Poppers activate... it is that businessman!" and they each take out a small inhaler and take it. Ready for combat and less emotionally stable, they advance with drawn guns to Mato, and while the narcotic takes effect their leader decides to chitchat. "There are many of us - and one of you. So you will hand us the card and return to your side of town." he says while pointing his gun at Mato.


They are armed with regular pistols rather than flame-based weapons, and while they do not appear to be very proficient, they all point their guns at Mato.

Mato isn't sure if he should use his infrasonic generators or not. They're good at unnerving people, but are scared people with guns going to run or open fire?

"Who says there's only one of me?!" Mato says, dialing up the infrasonic waves with the hope that they'll rattle the gangers.

"I've got aerial cover!" He points to the night sky.

<<Tamarind, do I actually have any aerial cover, or just eyes and ears>>

"And magical support!"

<<Raven, is one of your spirit friends available>>

He flicks the lighter on and holds it up to the card, (hopefully) igniting it.

"Now you wanna get nuts?! LET'S GET NUTS!!"

<< I will be there in a moment. Won't be able to do much myself from the astral, but my friend here should be very helpful in subduing them. >>

Rachel quickly checks the route with Bobby, so she will still be able to find the car after a little while, before heading off into astral space and towards Mato's location.

Tamarind doesn't really have firepower in the air, although the Fly Spy is is almost there and closing fast. But she does have the delivery drone circling low in the area, so she she has it take a low pass overhead. It is just a delivery drone, but it is very easy to set up such a drone with firepower or explosives, so hopefully the young would-be toughs will assume that it is a stealth gun drone.

Meanwhile, she has the van lower a window and sends the other two Aunties and Uncle out (3x Flying Eye), to also converge on NATO's location. She is still most of a km away, with drek roads to deal with, but the drones can fly direct and get there more quickly.

After a moment of weighing the probes and cons she slows and pops the back doors on the van, and sends out Toothless. The tracked paramedic drone knows how to lower itself from the van, and then she sends it ahead. It is faster than the van, better able to deal with bad roads, and small enough to use sidewalks or smaller gaps. It isn't actually armed, but it's jack and 'jaws of life' attachments look threatening. She doesn't want to use it to draw fire, but needs must.

<<I've tried to support your bluff with a delivery drone. Actual support is trickling in over the next seconds to minutes. The longer you can stall, the more support you've got.>>

Bobby sent to Mato: <<You know what the better part of valor is - start running and don't stop evading. Those bozos can't hit drek if you don't stop moving. We are nearly there.>>

@Mato If the Halloweeners are hesitant about going seven-to-one with a cybered orc with some risk of magic and air support, they have a wired way to show it - a barrage of center-mass aimed shots aimed directly at Mato is the answer Mato gets for trying to burn the card. They are considerably faster due to the Kamikaze and react at speeds on par with augmented people.



@Raven As you quickly approach the combat scene in the astral, inhumanely fast, you arrive just before the carnage happens. You encounter an astral entity watching the combat; its aura resembles a burning man. "Hello, Gorgeous!" he says with a menacing but exciting voice, not directly hostile, but somehow even a greeting appears to have some deeper meaning. "If you help him, I help them - and then I can't tell if they are any good."

@Tamarind As the delivery drone moves into position, you notice the group of gangers and Mato in a violent standoff; whatever you do with the drones, it has to be now and without real armaments.

Raven stops and keeps a healthy distance from the entity. She takes a moment to assense him, while she looks into his direction, anyways.

"You must be Nightmare, then. Well, I guess that is fair. I will stay out of it. But I will tell him, if that's okay. Because he is expeciting me."

The entity does not confirm or deny, and the entire aura appears to be a burning man; it is impossible to judge even if it is a projecting mage or a spirit. Though the burning man is not an aura, it sort of mocks the person assessing, knowing that it cannot be the truth because such a sight belongs physically, and nothing in the astral looks like that.

He says, "Suit yourself but you'll only distract him. He'll wipe the floor with them anyhow. "

With a mental wince, Tamarind prepares to harass one of the gangers with her delivery drone. One less gun pointed Mato's way, at least briefly. But before she can even command it to interfere he's tossed a grenade and dodged a hail of gunfire. She isn't sure what the grenade is, and doesn't want to have the drone die in a wall of shrapnel before it can even do anything, so she swings it down behind the gangers, a bit out of likely explosion range, then waits for the 'bang'.

Meanwhile she broadcasts to the others, in case they are still monitoring <<Mato seven would-be gangers, but holding his own so far.>>

Perhaps a careful observer might see the faintest trace of a smile on the corner of Mato's mouth.

Juiced with reaction enhancers and superhuman cybernetic limbs, he backpedals while palming a flash-bang and flinging it into the midst of the gangers.

"TAG! You're it!"

The juiced-up Halloweeners respond with a hail of gunfire. Some of it is even accurate, but it's one thing to hit a stationary target and quite another to connect with a target that is carthwheeling, flipping, rolling, and generally cavorting in the face of danger. As the flash-bang goes off, Mato spins, whipping his Synergist Business Line Longcoat around behind him like a bull fighter's cape. There's a gleam in his eye as he considers his options.

@Raven Nightmare comments Very good to himself when he sees the initial onslaught - he seems more focused on Mato than on the gangers.

@Bobby and Tamarind: While the grenade must be effective in sending a wave of concussive force to all directions, the gangers seem to ignore it altogether. Tamarind's drone makes a low pass - as low as Tamarind feels it is safe to pilot it. She forces three of the gangers to drop prone, and throws the orderly firing squad into disarray and then it is each man for himself. Two of them are firing at the drone - and only five at Mato making them even less likely that one of them would land a hit, at the cost of possible damage to the drone. They all seem to enjoy the occasion in some beastly chemical high of high violence.

Raven will head over to where Mato is and manifest next to him.

"Hey! Minor complication. I won't be able to help. Nightmare is here and watching everything."

She emphasizes that last part, hoping that Mato will realize what that means.

"He says, he wants to see how his cadets are faring against you."

Then her image vanishes and she moves away some, waiting for Bobby to arrive.

Mato winces a bit at Rachael's news. The purpose of this whole exercise was to destroy the card so that Nightmare wouldn't know that it's a fake. But if Nightmare is there on the astral observing...? Then this whole chase and fisticuffs could be for naught. Mato hopes that it's a case of mistaken identity, and that it's some other fire spirit on the astral.

He doesn't have time to say anything; he's still in a hail of gunfire. Ducking under the stream of bullets, he launches forward, his cyberlegs pounding the turf, as he races straight toward the nearest shooter. With the drone tucked under his left arm, Mato pretends he is an American football player about to stiff-arm a defender. He plants his cyberhand right in the shooter's face and drives the ganger into the ground. The goon gets a good knock in the back and the skull and their eyes roll back into their head.

One down, six to go.

Bobby bounced pretty roughly over the curb to reach the back alley. One of the mirrors bent back with a snap as he touched a dumpster.

With screaming breakes did he bring the car to a stop.
<<We are here, just around the corner. Come over if you have a hot second.>>

It's springtime. As a gardener, Mato knows that it is time to plant carrots, onions, and Halloweeners.

Leaping off his first victim, Mato the Business Barbarian propels himself toward the next two. They shoot high, he ducks low, then sweeps them off their feet with a mighty swipe of his right arm. They topple backward, hoops over heads, and are knocked out when their heads hit the ground.

Three down, four to go.

@Raven, the entity, says, "Very good. He is very good." perhaps to herself, to make conversation.


With three of them down and Mato unscratched and the rest of the standing gangers hurt - one would expect a sensible person to run. Most military units would have either lost cohesion or retreat in this situation. Though as the Kamikaza kicks in their veins, they feel no pain or fear. The two gangers firing at the drone keep firing, unaware if they even hit it or if it is in range they would likely empty half the magazine before they stop.

The two remaining firing at Mato does look scared. They know they are done for, and yet they fire one last time before their fate inevitably catches up with them.

How it would be to feel the drones fans like they were my own limbs, to be able to weave and bob the thing like it was my own body?

Those thoughts don't in any way slow down Tamarind's reactions as she uses augmented reality controls to flip the drone mostly onto one side and scoot is sideways while letting it droop and pop back up. The gangers who were shooting at it fail to predict its movements, and miss. Then she kicks an rotating overdrive of the fans to throw it into a wobbling flight while trying to gain a bit more altitude again. Unfortunately one of the gangers either gets lucky or good, and shoots through the door motor. It doesn't down the drone, but leaves it flying awkwardly with the door dangling from one hinge.

Tamarind wastes a moment checking on where her other drones are, but the short answer is "100 meters farther than when the shooting broke out" which is still far too many seconds from being able to help in the combat.

<<Counting coup, be right there>> Mato responds.

There's another flutter of his long coat as he pounces from victim to victim not unlike a nocturnal bat-themed superhero. Whether it's plot armor or the randomly generated luck of the universe, none of the bullets catch up to him. It's a heady feeling, almost like being invincible. This must be what Kamikaze feels like, he thinks to himself as a rush of adrenaline powers him to the finish. Ride the wave, motherfraggers.

There's a taze-taze here and a taze-taze there and the two shooting at him stop. Then he's left standing with the drone under his arm. The last two Halloweeners realize that they are alone and throw down their weapons, hoping to be spared.

I should have prepared a speech, Mato thinks to himself, wondering if Tom and Rat are filming this from hiding. Maybe he could combine it with high-angles from Tamarind's drones to make a highlight reel.

"Game over," Mato tells the remaining two, keeping his infrasonic generators at a high pitch. He advances on them menacingly, a slightly crazed look in his eye.

Luckily he pinched two lighters from the gangers earlier, so he produces the second one from his pocket and lights it. He holds it up to the card to ignite it, making sure that the glow of the flame catches his face from below like a camp counselor telling spooky stories around the campfire.

"I have a new game for you. It's called 'frag around, find out'," he says. What exactly they will find out he leaves open to interpretation. "Your friends played," he says, gesturing to their unconscious forms.

He gets very close to them so that even in their drug-fueled haze they'll understand what he says next. "Tell everyone what happened here," he says as the card burns. "Tell them what happens."

Once the card is destroyed, he spins on his heel, activates his skimmers, and sprints toward Bobby and the Americar. He keeps the drone tucked under his arm, reasoning that Tamarind will appreciate it, especially if one her drones got shot while covering Mato's flank. He silences the infrasonic generators and climbs into the car.

"Oh, right, you're still naked. Well, it's been an evening, hasn't it?

"Let's get back to the Gates so I can see if there are any bullet holes in my overcoat. When is AM back again?"

The card resists momentarily and then goes up in alchemical purple and green flame, disappearing altogether as if leaving very little behind. The shocked gangers looked at Mato. "All this effort to destroy it?!" they say more to themselves than as a question. They have had enough and are relieved when Mato finally leaves the scene.

Bobby looked down at himself and shrugged: "A moment ago, I was still invisible. Doesn't really matter, I guess."
With a complicated gesture, that looked a bit like an eye poke, Bobby suddenly appeared to wear the same outfit as Mateo.
"Right, let's get out of here. Mission still is a bust - the Muse once again played us.
But we got paid and that's the main thing." Bobby carefully navigated the car back on the road, heading for their office.

Rachel returns to her body and informs the others of her little encounter.

"In case you havn't heard, Nightmare was there in the astral space. He told me not to interfere, or otherwise he would also take part. He wanted to see how his cadets were faring against Mato. The whole scene seemed to amuse him. He never acknowledged it directly, but it just seems to fit. He was a powerful fire spirit capable of masking his aura. Of course, anyone with this ability could probably pose as such, but why would they?"

When it is no longer needed, she will end the invisibility spell on Bobby.

"Great, so the big bad fire spirit is now directly aware of us. Let's see how this shakes out. I'm pretty sure, Nightmare is now fully aware that this whole thing was a setup - if he hasn't been from the start.

Time for another meeting with our employer."
Bobby replied while steering towards the Gates.

Mato has a far-away look in his eyes. In his body he's feeling a strange combination of exhilaration and exhaustion. Perhaps he is just coming down off his adrenaline high. In any event, it seems to make him talkative.

"It's different," he says, "when they're shooting at you with actual malice, with real intent.

"Back in Sioux Nation, I used to train with this retired Wildcat. He'd be firing at me with this Ruger Super Warhawk hand cannon, loud as frag. Just gel rounds, although they'd knock you on your hoop if they connected. Big gun, good shot, but still... it was just a lesson. There were safety nets."

Mato babbles. Bobby trained in the SDF, so he must understand at least a bit, right?

Mato looks at his hands and arms as if seeing them for the first time. He looks over his coat, examining it for new holes. He had counted coup, had left his enemies afraid but alive, just like all the heroes in the trids he watched growing up as a sickly child in Sioux Nation. Was Mato now one of those action heroes? Was this a validation of his life choices, to become the kind of man his younger self admired?

Raven's return and statement brings him back to the present.

"How do we know it was Nightmare?" he asks. "And not some other fire spirit delegated to observe? Nightmare has always been so guarded about its nature up to this point. Or did they figure that the cat's out of the bag?"

It's an honest question. He's not questioning Raven's judgement (well, sort of, but not in a confrontational manner); it's just Mato doesn't understand astral space and what it's like to be there.

"Alright, let's go face the music."

"Are you joking? You paid someone to shoot at you? With a Ruger? Well, I guess you can't argue with results. My Wildcat instructors just ran us ragged on obstacle courses and beat the crap out of us if we mouthed off. Good times."

Bobby replied. "Doesn't matter if it was the original or some imposter. Nightmare is topdog among the local fire spirits. And they do talk among each other like washer women.

It's probably my fault that he doesn't keep his cover anymore. I sold the info to Lysander a while ago."

Rachel shrugs. "I cannot say for sure, of course, but it was a powerful fire spirit with abilities beyond those of a normal spirit. And he talked about his guys there, observing them to see if they are any good."

Mato silently marvels at the turn his life had taken. Between Melpomene, Green Toes, Nightmare... how many free spirits can a mundane have in his life?

"What's done is done," he says, although it isn't necessarily clear what he's referring to specifically. Bobby selling out Nightmare's nature? What the Crimson Crush did to the Halloweeners? Nightmare maybe finding out about the fake card? "Let's sync up with Tamarind so she doesn't find herself in a pack of angry gangers."

If they tell it, Mato will listen to the story of the raid on Frisson with a bemused smile.

Bobby relied the story of how Rachel got a pretty nifty, easy to carry Vault of Ages.

"...and for further reference, that was a Counting Coup too and not, for a random example, sexual assault."