Grey stepped out of the outpost with a refreshing smile on his face. He had restocked on his Cyber Cores, and thanks to the fact he had already opened up the spaces for them in his inventory, he had even more now than before.

But he was also, unfortunately, officially broke.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. He still had the Vanguard Class materials from Esmeralda, and he had the useless disk he hadn’t sold just yet. So, he would be flush with cash soon enough. But in terms of credits, he only had a few ten thousand left.

This was still far more cash than most of the humans of Earth had at this point, but it made him feel like a pauper.

’Maybe I should go back and try to find the armor.’ Grey’s lips pursed. ’Whatever, forget it. That’s Giyoto’s problem at this point.’

The armor was too powerful, as was that altar Giyoto had stored in the catacombs. He wasn’t going to waste the Cyber Cores to open up a space to carry it, and even if he wanted to, the amount he had now probably wouldn’t even be enough.

If he couldn’t use the armor, it would just be dead weight to him right now. It was probably stored somewhere in Edmun’s living quarters right now, and the last thing he wanted to do was go in there.

That entire city either pissed him off or made him sad. He had what was important on him.

Grey let out a long sigh. "Why do I keep running into you people?"

He looked to the side and didn’t find anything immediately with his eyesight, anyway. But the fluctuations were too obvious to the sphere of influence that was his Resonant Frame.

Brad, Mauve, and Stella... again.

There was a fluctuation and the trio stepped out from seemingly empty space.

’Cool.’ Grey thought, his eyes landing on Mauve. That seemed to be her Ability.

"Can we hurry up and get this whole battle to the death thing over with already?" Grey rolled the tip of his pinky through his ear, breathing out an annoyed breath.

Surprisingly, though, the three of them didn’t actually do that.

Brad hesitated for a moment, then cleared his throat.

"We received a sponsorship contingent on taking your life."

Grey raised an eyebrow. Why the hell did he sound so embarrassed?

"Then hurry it up. My head is right here, overgrown oaf."

"The offer was rescinded." Brad said.

Grey’s lips rolled over themselves and he stifled a laugh. They should be thankful about all this, really. He could already kill them easily while he was still in the Proving Class, let alone now.

"And why are you telling me this now?"

"... The fat guy. That was you?"

"Fat guy? Do I look fat to you?"

Brad pointed to his own head.

"Fuck." Grey rubbed a palm across his head. It was still mostly stubble. Matching that with the fact his style of clothing was identical to his fatter self, not to mention his voice, and it would have been a bit too ridiculous if they didn’t put two and two together.

Brad looked like he was going to laugh but stifled his own.

He cleared his throat. "Did you really kill that girl?"

Grey raised an eyebrow. "Why are you suddenly interested in knowing?"

There wasn’t a single part of Grey that believed Brad was asking this because of one conversation. He had just been venting some frustration back then, he knew humans were too stubborn to change their minds until something really fucked them up the ass.

Meaning, Brad needed something.

Brad hesitated, but it was Mauve who actually held a hand up and stopped him. She walked forward until she was in front of Grey at a normal talking distance. In a world like this one, that was about as much trust as you could give a person.

"Megan is a good friend of mine from Earth. We heard what you did, and how thanks to you they all made it out of the Instance. We misjudged you."

Grey blinked. ’Megan...? Oh, her.’

Megan was part of the trio that he had initially fought in the coliseum. He had ended up injuring them pretty heavily, but he ultimately let them live.

"It should have been obvious before, but they’ve been manipulating things for more entertainment for a while. You are clearly more powerful than Joaquin was, there was no reason for them to pick him to highlight over you unless they had ulterior motives. I want to formally apologize to you."

Mauve lowered her head slightly. It didn’t seem to be an actual custom of hers, but rather because she was truly too ashamed to look Grey in the eye right now.

Maybe Grey had killed May, but so what if he had? Weren’t they all trying to survive? Who was to say that May hadn’t tried to kill them first like they had tried to kill him?

"Well, shit," Grey rubbed the back of his head and didn’t really know what to say.

"I’m sorry." Brad said quickly afterward.

Stella shifted, the complicated feelings in her heart really bubbling over for a time. She had been the leader of the team at the start, but their dynamics had really changed over time. The more mistakes she made, the less of a leadership role she took until things boiled over to this point.

It wouldn’t be a mistake to say she was most responsible for their targeting Grey.

"I’m sorry." She said. "It’s all my fault."

She lowered her head, her strawberry red hair bobbing in the wind.

Grey didn’t embarrass easily, but this really did leave him embarrassed. He was better at kicking annoying people in the face than dealing with whatever this was.

He cleared his throat. "It’s fine, it’s fine. Whatever, whatever. Just tell me what the problem was."

He still didn’t believe that they were standing around here just waiting to apologize to him. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Mauve looked up and took a breath. "Our zone is in trouble."