By the time Bobby and Alys were fully done with their business in the offices- talking with Penny, making requests at the armories and catching up with their crew, it was already getting time for the changing of shifts. The daywalkers among Red Clay were heading out, to be filled in by the night crew. A slow line of cars trailed out of the parking lot, heading to their various homes. Bobby and Alys leaned on his car, the sun beating down on their faces.

With his bones creaking too much for someone too young, his metal arm clanging on the door, they drove home. Rather than try and head through the Gates, they went back through the normal roads. Bobby's stomach growled, and they stopped and got some greasy burgers from a fast food joint. Alys ate a chicken wrap, Bobby picked some combo meal. It had a lot of bacon and grease dripping off it, and the saltiest, mushiest fries he ever had the displeasure of spending five dollars on. Alys promised to pick him up in the morning, and he just nodded and ate his burger.

They trundled back on the county roads to Bobby's little house, creeping in just after dark. Bobby drug himself out, giving Alys a farewell, before collapsing into his bed. Where Alys went didn't matter to him right then, because as long as the doors were locked and the lights out, he couldn't give a rat's ass what happened to anybody else. They didn't even speak much on the way home, Alys keeping stony and Bobby not wanting to prod her too much.

Every single part of him hurt. Aches and pains radiated out of him, and no matter how he laid he couldn't fight the fact that his right arm was... bound up. The keystone installed in it kept it firmly in there. He cussed out Ys every chance he could, but he couldn't deny: they had powerful magic, and the Gauntlets were certainly effective. But with it wrapped tight around his magic-slinging arm, it brought with it complications.

He remembered the mantras of his magical education. Breathe, act, realize, those were the fundamentals of magic. To breathe was to draw in power into the heart for it to coalesce. To act was to allow it to flow out to where it was needed, through the heart and into the arms, or the lips or wherever else one did cast spells from. To realize it was to make the world match what you wanted in your head. 

Bobby laid on his bed and stared at the ceiling. His stomach churned, digesting the greasy food. And he reached, stretched his metal-clad fingers up and made a faux grasp towards the sky. 

It didn't help. He drew air into his lungs and expelled it. Marvelous, the gauntlet was, marvelous for how it tightened and constrained, and how he couldn't quite get comfortable with it on. The man dropped his arm and heard it thud against his sheets. Ys- they were odd, with their magical colleges and esoteric ways. But he couldn't fault them for their devices, especially not the Gauntlets. Even now the burned skin of his arm seemed less immediately painful, now just a constant pain. Not too low to be easily ignored, not too high to merit a pilfered pill. It left him in a malaise of discomfort after he kicked off all his clothes and miserably tried to find sleep.

Everything passed by in a blur after that. From the night to the morning, he didn't so much sleep as fall into a deep torpor. He languished in his bed for some time, barely counting the hours, before his body seemed to wake. It happened on its own, he didn't dream or fall into a nightmare, he just came to rest and then all of a sudden his eyes snapped open and his heart kickstarted into a beat. 

He dressed himself plainly, in a tank top and working pants, before grabbing his duty gear. The Wildlands were... wild, for one, and that was both blessing and curse. There were fewer things to worry about, but on the same note, what was there? He'd gunned down griffons, stood-off with satyrs, and duked it out with drakes. Bobby put his home guns up, and reached into his small armory.

Out came the armor, a thick vest covered in webbing and bags and pouches- and loaded with all kinds of fancy ceramic and high density plastic plates. It was a bit of a struggle to get it out with his bound-up arm, but he managed, setting it aside. Then he dug into his gun closet- pulling out a sleek black AR-15, with a barrel a foot and a half long and thirty cartridges on tap. A red dot and a magnifier mounted atop it and a big "vision module," putting out lights, lasers and infrared, hung off the end of it. This was his Wildlands rifle- where concealment didn't particularly matter, but firepower did. Six-and-a-half millimeter was the name of the game, with more powder and bigger bullets being necessary with how robust some creatures got out there.

The man's morning ritual before such endeavors involved a few simple things. Slip his gun in his pocket, splash his face in cold water, shake himself out, and start preparing. He grabbed a box of ammo with his bad hand, and a bag full of magazines with the other, making a few trips up and down till all his equipment laid out in the living room. Then he fixed himself a big pot of coffee, sat himself down, and-

"Morning." Alys popped in all of a sudden with that mysterious elven magic of hers- nearly getting a gun to her  as Bobby jumped and gave her a dirty look. "Did you sleep well?"

"Jesus Christ, could you not do that? Please? Alys? Please?" Bobby wiped his face off, coffee in one hand, magazine in the other. "Hell no. I slept like shit."

The elf slid into the seat opposite from him. She plucked one of the cartridges up, the six-and-a-half millimeter cartridge dancing in her fingers. Then she picked up a spare magazine, slipping it into the body with an affirmative pop. "Well, at least you slept. Need a hand with that?"

"If you're offering. What time is it?" Bobby cleared his throat, fumbling the ammunition. He held the mags with his right hand, and loaded them with his left. All the while he held in the urge to cuss her out.

"Little past seven." Alys deftly maneuvered the brass cases into their containers. It didn't take long for them to get it all loaded up, and Bobby started loading up his armor with them. He reached into his fridge and pulled out something sweet, sugary, and high calorie to eat. "Or- you'd call it a quarter past?"

He looked at his clock. Just about- "Yeah. It's a quarter past." He threw a few pistol magazines on the table, loading them up with some extra-hot nine millimeter ammo. "Let's just get some breakfast on the way."

"...It still surprises me you can own all this kind of stuff, you know." Alys set aside the steel.  

Bobby looked at her crossly. "It's working gear."

"Oh I fully understand that." She pointed to his rifle and his handgun... and his armor, and the large amounts of ammunition he carried with him. "It just, is, y'know, it's a lot of gear. All we're doing is checking out the old roost."

He coughed and slipped his pistol into his holster, threw the rifle on top of his plate carrier, and gathered it all up. "The old roost of a dragon. One of the big ones, if I'm not mistaken. What was his name, Alys? Y'know, I never heard him talked about much."

Her lips tightened and her hair fell down, losing that animated quality she always had. "His name was Ziz-Simurgh. You can't really speak of him in Ys, and- Benjamin isn't too keen on him."

Bobby nodded, chugging down the last bit of coffee. "Well? Why's that?"

The elf stood up quickly. "It's- well I'm not going to lie. It was thirty years ago Benjamin- he went by Behemot back then." Alys looked over her shoulder. "The battle killed a hundred thousand in the blink of an eye. Out of fifty million or so people of Ys."

"Jesus. I'm sorry to hear that." Bobby coughed. "Were you there for it...?"

"No. Glad I wasn't." She coughed. "Ziz-Simurgh, he was like a fiery wind that scoured miles of Ys. You know how big those dragons get, Benjamin was the smaller of the two, and he's already... Leagues long, he is. Simurgh's wings alone could blot out the sun for miles around. He was very big. Just his corpse falling down-"

Bobby nodded. "Just falling down knocked out a lot of the city. That's awful- why did they get to killing each other? And why's it that I haven't heard a thing about it?"

"I don't remember you ever asking about it- and, that's the thing." The elf poured herself a cup of coffee in a to-go mug. "They just up and got to fighting one day. All we know is Ziz started it. Ben hasn't spoken a peep about it since... Since it happened, really."

"Lys... I'm not even thirty years old." He chuckled. "That all happened before I was even born."

"Shoot, I always forget." The elf took a sip, helping Bobby load everything up in the Honda with little deliberation. "It's a big thing. The remembrance day for it is coming up, and I think Benjamin is concerned about it."

Bobby nodded, slinging his rifle into the backseat of his car and easing into the passenger seat. "Thirty or so years after the fact and he's concerned about, what, copycats? Old facts about Ziz coming up? I thought there were only Lua and him as top dogs over there, apart from them other big colossi."

Alys shook her head. "I don't know, he said he'd have a dossier for us. What do you want for breakfast?"

"Ah hell..." He rubbed his nose, thinking it over. "Chic-Fil-A sounds good right about now."

---

The two then proceeded to get Chic-Fil-A.

---

"Man I love Chic-Fil-A." Bobby flushed the chicken nuggets down with some iced coffee.  The Honda swung into the parking lot of Red Clay just as he'd finished picking his meal apart. "Good shit right there."

"I like the other chicken restaurant." Alys hummed, sipping her lemonade daintily. The manual transmission didn't give her much opportunity to drink while driving. "Poppy's?"

"Poppy's- Popeyes? Alys- Popeyes is nasty! Chic-Fil-a is the only good chicken chain." The man feigned offense.

She reached over and got her salad out of the bag, shooting Bobby a smirk. "You took me out to Popeyes when I was getting oriented here, Bobby."

"Because the Popeyes was closer. That don't change the fact it's nasty." He crumpled up his waste in the bag and grabbed his gear- choosing to slip the plate carrier on over his tank top and then he checked his rifle. Unloaded, no round in the chamber, magazine out- when he was satisfied, he slung it over his shoulder and stepped into the lobby, letting Alys get her things.

Thirty whole feet of snake greeted him, coiled up and... 

"Layla." Bobby stepped over the top of the lamia-woman's tail. She'd dozed off again- not like she had very many guests who came through that door. But- "Layla-" he nudged her tail with his boot "-Layla! Good morning! Wake up, sleepyhead!"

The lamia snored. Bobby shook his head and carefully stepped over the meaty tail of the serpent. The door opened behind him, Alys dragging her gear behind her- and letting out a groan when she too had to step over Layla. 

In fact, they were almost through the door when the snake woke up. "H-huh- oh, good morning! Where are you two headed?"

"Wildlands. One of those missions." Bobby stopped and watched the lamia compose herself, the woman shaking the sleep out of her eyes and... unhinging... her jaw. It made his spine tense up a little, but he just politely coughed and gave her a nudge. "You, uh, up late?"

"Mhm... watched those movies." She stretched her joints out some more, pulling a large blanket out and wrapping it over her shoulders. "Got halfway through- they're really good. How long was I... out?"

Bobby checked his watch. "It's like eight o'clock, Layla."

"Oh." She sunk into her seat, running a finger through her neat, straight black hair. That stress on her face looked unseemly on her face, Bobby thought.

The man chuckled, and ducked into Red Clay's warehouse, letting the lamia settle in. "Get some coffee or something!" He called back, closely followed by the elven friend of his. "You might need it!"

Alys hustled up and strode beside Bobby, her bag jostling and her hair waving behind her. "You're quite friendly with her." She matter-of-factly stated. "Layla, is it?"

He rolled his shoulders. "At least she isn't Delilah. I swear, it was a mistake to summon that succubus. What's that thing those folks have that makes them all like, animal-y, monster-y? Something expression?"

"Atavism. Er-" Alys racked her brain. "Your doctor calls it something else. Expression Syndrome. Or Atavist Expression Syndrome, I think. They don't like being called monstrous, you know, it's a little offensive to them."

"Hey, no offense but she's kind of- she's big. Like really big. Monster-sized big." Bobby let out a loud snicker, and he knew he got a real dirty look out of the elf. He turned back and gave her a smile. "I was looking on the internet a lil' while back. Y'know, I think if Layla leaked any photos of hers, she'd have a lot of fans. Like a lot of 'em. See there's this funny stuff coming out of Japan called- hold on, let's get a cart-"

They walked up and flagged down another cart- the kobold there seemed a little apprehensive seeing two larger folks in armor with weapons- but Alys' soothing words got him settled. The two piled in and the elf set him off towards the Admin tower- and SurSec, where they were headed. The quartermasters had likely got all their requests squared up- it was a rush order after all. Bobby shit his eyes and secured himself in his seat. 

"Well, Atavist is the term we use, back home. And- hey, what do you mean by that? Are there-" The gears turned in Alys head, resuming their earlier conversation. "-What do you mean? You're not telling me there's men from the lower king- sorry, Earth- who are into that? I thought that was just a Ys thing. The whole-"

"Someone sounds jealous. I thought we were over all that, babe." Bobby  cracked one eye open, watching Aly's face turn a furious shade of red, the elf grasping for words. The kobold driver looked between the two of them- before Bobby raised a finger. "And- relax! She's not my type. I like blondes."

"I was talking about her being a big snake lady!" Alys hissed, looking a little self-conscious with how she grabbed her hair and shot him the absolute filthiest of looks. "By the gods, Bobby, you are such a pest."

They trundled along on the kobold-driven cart. Bobby got a little more rest, and he felt Alys fuming beside him. When they ground to a halt by the admin tower, they disembarked, waving the driver off. Bobby secured his rifle and watched the stumpy-legged creature hurry off to complete his rounds, snickering softly. The short, waddling little kobolds always looked funny to him, but he buried the thought and hustled into the admin tower elevator. Alys filed in, picking at the last bits of her salad as she did.

The doors shut, and then they descended down to SurSec. Bobby drummed fingers on an empty pocket, focused on the door, before he got a nudge from a certain elven elbow. "Hey-" Alys gulped down the last bit of lettuce. " -Are Earther men really into that?"

"What- Foreign chicks?" Bobby raised an eyebrow. "Yeah. She'd be a sight to see in the middle of nowhere over here where we liv-"

"Lamias. Other Atavists." Alys clarified, glowering. "I thought that was just a Ys thing and you were joking."

"Lys..." Bobby rubbed his nose. "I'm not joking. I've seen- there's some funky stuff out of Japan, you know, and I know like some dudes, they'll just jump on anything that moves and gives 'em the time of day. Dudes will like, weird stuff, y'know. There's probably someone into snakes. Really into snakes."

The elf blinked. "That's a little- really? How do you know about that? Would you do that, I mean- she's a lamia..."

"She's cute, but I told you I like blondes more." The man shrugged, the elevator smoothly halting at SurSec. The glass doors slid open and they stepped out into the dark, fortified halls of Surveillance and Security. There wasn't even an attempt to mask it as some kind of workplace: it was a staging area for the more... secretive operations they conducted. 

"Oh- dammit Bobby." Alys sighed, following after him. There weren't workers down here, there were operators, agents and contractors. Most of them were elves or humans- and Bobby recognized a few of them, getting silent looks. Most of them were in plainclothes, practical gear, guns on their hips. All of them had some work to do for Benjamin: the two slipped by a pair with submachineguns slung under their shoulders and lightweight body armor mosying down the hall.

They'd both been down here plenty enough to know where to go. Bobby caught a few looks for the heavy gauntlet clasped over his arm, but they weren't stopped anywhere. A few swipes through keycard doors later, and they found themselves in Operations: a small room with a long wooden table, a dozen chairs to each side, and-

"Mishka!" Bobby smiled. He got... Well it counted as a smile, the big orcish overseer didn't show teeth much. But the tusks poking out of green lips, the sharp angular ears at attention, and the relaxed posture was all he needed to see. Orcs were notoriously hard to get a read on: Mishka wasn't an exception. The big fellow stood taller than both Alys and Bobby, and he wore polos and slacks from the big and tall section. "Whatcha got for me?"

"Robert. Alyssandra." The orc had a flat, solid tone to his voice. He turned on his heels and clicked the teleprompter on- the glowing eyes of  Benjamin, the great dragon, looking straight at them. Even through the camera, Bobby could sense the scale. The orc stepped aside, passing thick folders to both Bobby and Alys. "Dossiers. That is what I have for you. Dossiers about your mission. Your mission to the Cauldron, the old dragon's roost. Please, take a seat."

"Can you please just call me Alys?" The elf shook her head in bemusement before sitting down, Bobby sliding across from her and taking the dossier from Mishka. "Good morning, Benjamin."

"Good morning to you!" Benji cracked a big smile. "How are my two favorite agents doing today?"

The magician leaned back in his chair, setting his rifle to lean on the table. "I'm doing wonderfully, boss."

"Good, good. Now, let's get down to business, if you'll just open up that file and take a look at some of these pictures, you'll see where I need you to go-"

---

The distance to travel? Three hundred miles out from Ys, heading relative west through the Gates. The destination? Middle of the wildlands, in some territory largely uncontested by any of the city states, far from recognized civilization. They'd link up with some of Lua's folks and take a wing of gunships out with them. It was an old caldera atop an inactive volcano, stretching for miles across- and it'd take weeks to scan over all of it. In the thirty years since it'd been destroyed, the mountaintop had turned into a bit of a wildlife refuge. Nothing threatening, but still- would help to be prepared.

They sat in the meeting room for what felt like an eternity, hashing out all the details of the mission. Threat levels, equipment, what would actually be going on, and how they'd operate with Lua's folks. Bobby and Alys were in charge, but they had duties that needed to be executed. Nobody of any importance lived out there... but then again, Benji gave the sign-off on them having as much firepower as they could bring with them. And a quick visit to Penelope to confirm prescriptions, his goodbyes to everyone else, and he was off back down the Admin Tower.

Bobby mulled it over as they headed into the depot, picking up the last few things from the armory. He spoke with the quartermasters- and got himself a few of the more... exciting options for his work. It was a pain in the ass to get actual explosives. So they made do with alchemical alternatives. Ys wasn't subject to American firearms laws. Or explosives laws- or, hell, American law enforcement had almost no authority in Ys, and legally speaking, Red Clay didn't exist in America. Bobby checked in his car keys and the iron rod he had personally selected for himself as his wand and spell matrix. It'd be in safekeeping with the armorers- and got himself an alternative, upon request.

The elven apprentice in charge of equipment pulled a left-handed spell matrix out in exchange. It was a sleek affair, a twin brother to the Gauntlet he wore on his right arm. But rather than restrain the channels that allowed him to cast spells and use magic through that arm, the spell matrix would facilitate it in his other one. Magic flowed most easily through the dominant hand, but in a pinch, he could make do with his weak hand. To get it on, though, he slipped out of his carrier, handing it off to the elf- who struggled to carry the weight of armor and magazines, but he made do.

Bobby noted the thick, tough polymer layered over the bracing structure of the matrix. It looked like the versions worn by the US Gate Marshals- save it lacked any of the official markings of the US Government. The elven technician helped him wrap up the matrix up, getting it fitted to his left arm.

With that out of the way, he snagged a bag of field reagents. The same stuff he kept on his person at home... just more firmly and securely packaged. Modeling clay, salt, colloidal silver, all the works. Even sulfur and windproof candles. If, for some reason, he needed to summon a demon. The man stood awkwardly while the elven technician worked, securing bags and pouches to the man's plate carrier- before signing off on everything and letting him don his armor again.

With all of his gear checked out- the stuff he requested in a thick case, and the stuff he was assigned in another- he set off towards the motor pool. The two cases rolled behind him, and he ducked, weaved and excused himself through the halls until he met back up in the Hangar.

He spoke with one of the crew chiefs- and met back up with Alys, who herself had already gotten set up in one of their transport trucks. The Hangar... it was the home of the motor pool full of Cold War surplus, fleet-model pickups, the air fleet of gunships, a few propeller planes, and a line of trailers containing cigarette boats, commercial fishing trawlers, and a set of Zodiac boats. He passed by a few of the lazing technicians- most of the techs working here were humans, and veterans at that- before getting there. "Hey Alys."

"Hey Bobby-" She was reading over her dossier again, shaking her head. "You ready to go?"

"Bout as ready as I can be." He muttered, setting his cases down. The man was just about to lumber through and lift the cases up, before Alys cast her little spell and the cases floated idly up into the cargo area of the truck. "Thanks."

"Least I can do." The elf folded up her dossier and clambered into the driver's side of the truck, followed by Bobby on the opposite side. "Buckle up. It's gonna be a long ride."

"Always is going through the Gates." He leaned back and got as comfortable as he could, rifle by his side and mission on his mind.