Information always came with a price—and more often than not, that price was plain old money, something both D-Mo and Orion rarely had enough of. The Plant's location, in particular, was proving elusive. As Orion combed through the networks, it became clear: anything this tightly guarded usually had serious power and wealth pulling the strings.
He knew the pattern well. It wouldn't be the first time he'd tried to brute-force his way into a secret—usually for the thrill of it. But this time, the stakes were different. The Plant wasn't just some forbidden database or shady black market exchange. It felt bigger.
After hitting yet another dead end, Orion slumped forward, resting his head against the desk with a weary sigh. May as well check in on D-Mo, he thought, and placed the call.
The moment D-Mo picked up, the coms were instantly flooded with the sharp cracks of gunfire. Orion didn't even flinch. "Hey D-Mo, the goods exchange job in District B going smoothly?"
One beep.
"Great. Think the client'll be happy? Not that I care about our merc rating or anything, but we're kind of desperate for cash right now."
Three beeps—uncertain.
Orion let out a long, exasperated sigh, waiting for the sound of someone screaming to fade in the background before speaking again. "Info's gotten real expensive lately, you notice that?"
She ended the call—Orion's was chatty at a bad time again.
Pressed behind a shipping container, D-Mo narrowly avoided being torn apart by a barrage of bullets. Sparks burst around her as she stayed crouched, calmly assessing her remaining spell cartridges. The supply was thin, but she'd have to make it work.
One cartridge stood out among the rest. A Hound-class ward—the one she stole from Judge. Heavier than any she'd slotted before, it rested in her hand like a loaded truth. If Arthur was right, those enchanter cartridges she once used weren't just lucky anomalies.
With a sharp, metallic click, she drove it into the slot on her shoulder, barely audible beneath the gunfire. This wasn't standard even by Hound-class standards. A strange sensation washed over her—numbness, and then a surge of raw, immense power.
She rounded the edge of the container with a calm, deliberate step, advancing slowly toward the gunmen. Bullets slammed into the invisible barrier surrounding her, breaking apart in flashes of mist that shimmered around her silhouette as she moved with quiet grace.
Her head tilted slightly to the side, as if the chaos barely registered. The docks of District B, she thought, looked unusually beautiful today. She let her gaze linger on the sea for a moment, the storm of gunfire fading into the background like distant rain.
She turned her gaze forward again—only then noticing her hands, clasped tightly around a neck. Her limbs felt distant, disconnected.
The next skull cracked beneath her fist with a sickening crunch, but D-Mo felt nothing. The noise, the violence—it all dissolved into a quiet stillness. There was something disturbingly peaceful about it, as if she'd drifted into a warm, weightless void that dulled everything, even thought itself. She couldn't say when her vision had faded, only that it had.
Then, the spell wore off.
Awareness snapped back like a whip. She jolted upright and let go of the limp arm still dangling from her grasp. Blood soaked her frame, and the scene around her was a nightmare made real. She had taken lives before—but nothing like this. This was wrong in ways she couldn't begin to name.
She had always prided herself on being clean—merciful, even. But the sight of the last thug dragging himself away, smearing a crimson trail across the pavement, made it painfully clear: this hadn't been quick. This was something else entirely.
The cartridge ejected from her shoulder with a heavy clunk, hitting the ground like stone on stone.
She pried the briefcase from the cold, rigid hands of one of the fallen and walked away from the docks, silently vowing never to use a Hound cartridge again. Still, a part of her already missed the numbness.
Back at Orion's workshop, she tossed the briefcase onto the nearest table and headed straight for the shower. The sudden slam startled Orion awake in his chair—where, lately, he spent more nights sleeping than not.
"Oh, welcome back, D-Mo," Orion said, mostly out of habit. He turned to glance at the briefcase—smeared with blood—and the faint sound of water running in the next room filled in the rest of the story.
"Messy job. Not really your style. Did you get a look inside?"
D-Mo replied with two short beeps, barely audible over the steady drip of the shower.
Orion popped the clasps open, hoping for a weapons deal. His face soured almost immediately as he clicked his tongue.
"Aaaand... it's drugs. Fantastic," he muttered dryly. "Well, we can still make the drop, D-Mo! Nothing useful here—unless you're into recreational chemistry, I guess."
The following day, D-Mo returned from the delivery with a few extra credits in her account—but the weight of what happened at the docks still clung to her. Instead of lounging on the couch like she usually did on her downtime, she sat hunched forward, quiet and withdrawn.
It was unfamiliar territory for Orion. Her distress was obvious, but he knew better than to ask directly. He'd have to take a different approach.
"You know," he began, setting a welding tool down with a deliberate clink, "sometimes things don't play out the way we plan." The sound echoed slightly in the quiet room, and D-Mo shifted uncomfortably on the couch.
He turned to face her, taking the position of the confessor with his elbows on his knees, his fingers weaved together. "My best guess is that you have to do something you didn't want to."
He turned to face her, settling into a posture that felt almost confessional—elbows resting on his knees, fingers interlaced. "If I had to guess," he said gently, "you did something you didn't want to do."
After a brief pause, D-Mo let out a single beep.
"That's alright," Orion replied with a tired but reassuring smile. "Means you can handle what has to be done. Those guys you took out—they weren't exactly model citizens. World's better off without them."
His words were comforting, and D-Mo appreciated them more than he knew. But they missed the mark. It wasn't about who she had killed. That never mattered much. It was how. The same how that had made Judge a notorious name across every district, long before ArchTek had upgraded him further. That was what haunted her. She didn't want to become him.
"How about a walk to clear your head?" Orion offered. "We could stop by and see Diane, then check in on Arthur. I'm still waiting to hear back from my contacts about the Plant anyway."
D-Mo perked up at the suggestion.
It wasn't a long walk to Hector's theater, where—as always—he was more than happy to project Diane's hologram for D-Mo. If anything, he was just grateful to have twice as many visitors as usual.
The music began to play, and whatever weight D-Mo had been carrying seemed to lift instantly. They both sat in a thoughtful silence—D-Mo especially quiet, her usual melancholic focus settling in. Almost like a ritual, she began her search for new leads on Diane's disappearance.
There had to be something Diane had left behind. Anything.
By the third piece, D-Mo stood up and moved toward the stage. She ascended the few short steps and found herself face to face with Diane's digital projection. From this distance, she seemed less tangible, but no less beautiful.
D-Mo hoped there might be a clue hidden somewhere—a mark, a scar, or perhaps a message tucked away in the folds of Diane's dress. It felt like wishful thinking, but she couldn't stop looking.
"You're the same height," Orion noted casually, repeating the observation without much emotion.
"You're the same height as—"
Diane.