Mercenaries and Dust

~Bear Corp~3rd Pov~

Seeing that Nick was unharmed everyone released a sigh of relief, especially Amy and Tom. Ruby was still next to Nick when he attempted to slice his arm off. Her knees gave way partway as Nick swung the rose-red blade at his arm.

"I guess my action has scared everyone... my bad."

After Nick had turned off the saber, Ruby snatched it from his hand and hid it behind her in case he tried that again. Nick was surprised at first but blew it off as someone worrying about his well-being.

"Well..since that was the last thing for this department, we can move on to the next. Please head to the limousine as I need to talk with Chief Tom here."

Watching everyone walkout as they muttered amongst themselves, Nick stood there with an unsure expression on his face. Their faces of fear were expected as trying to slice your arm off does frighten people. Putting everything aside Nick walked over to Chief Tom.

"I'm sorry about that last bit with my father's saber. I'll provide a bouns from my own wallet as an apology."

"Sir, you don't have to do that. I'm just worried you might have taken an unnecessary risk to yourself."

"Even so, I will still give you the bouns. I'll be more careful as I have to leave to attend to the guest."

Nick walked to the limousine and sat in his previous seat. This time around, everyone seemed a little more curious about the next department they were heading to. Nick could see it on their faces. With their attention to him, he used it.

"The next department we are heading to is the Mercenary Department. If I had to explain it, it would be like the huntsmen, except they work for us, and we provide them with jobs and really anything they need as long as it's within reason. We also train them while they're not on missions."

Many of the adults and even teens were interested in the chance to measure the Corporation's Mercenaries. Yang and Nora seemed pumped about it. Yang spoke first when Nora was about to.

"Hey, am I allowed to spare with them?! I bet I could down a few."

"You would have to ask the mercenaries first as I won't tell them to. You can also imagine the building as a big bar with added facilities like a training room and weight room. There is a room for people to spar in as we can't let them do it just anywhere."

Nora spoke up this time.

"Ok, but what if the fight couldn't be contained in the room?"

"That's a good question as we're confident that the rooms can't be destroyed too easily. If the room were too fragile, then repairs would be quite often...Ah, we have arrived."

As Nick had stated, the limousine stopped in a building at the edge of the Bear Corp property. With an entrance on the very edge of the property and another entrance at the back for the employees. The front entryway had a steady stream of people going in and out as many were coming and leaving for work. Thankfully, the guest only had to spend a bit of time in that back room with a few selected mercenaries and the Chief of the department. Their names were Bill, Cane, and Jane.

"These three will be the one showcasing the Mercenaries Department. Jane here is the Chief, while these two are volunteers. Bill's a ranged weapon expert and Cane's a close combat expert. Jane's specialty is her secret to give as she's the one to show it off. "

After a basic briefing of the workings about the department, Jane offered anyone who wanted to, a chance to fight anyone of them. Yang jumped right at the chance and right away chose Cane. Cane accepted her challenge, they were informed that every guest was combat trained except for one, Whitley.

A ring was already in place in the sparring room, so everyone walked over to watch the fight. Jane walked on to the ring and stood between the brawlers. Nick was in a corner, watching.

"Here are the rules, you fight until your aura is too low, surrender, or unable to continue. No doing anything you'll regret as I'll be the one you're answering to. Oh, and also Mr. Nick that's over there since he has to pay for all this anyway."

The two nodded their heads and a few in the crowd laughed about Nick paying. Yang and Cane readied their weapons before charging one another. Both raised their fist and swung for straight punch. Their fists met with a loud bang! Yang had used her 'Ember Celica' when their fists impacted. Cane stumbled back from the pain on his hand and the blast of 'Ember Celica'. Yang didn't idle, ran forward and started rapidly punching his gut until he was sent into the wall. Thankfully, Cane's aura lasted long enough to where there was so major injury. He was fine, but he was gonna need some rest.

Nick gave Cane a bouns and told him to get some rest. Nick knew that Cane lost for a few reasons. One, he didn't expect Yang to be so well trained and good at close combat and Two, Yang's weapon wasn't planned as no one realized it was with her.

"Well, we can have one more fight before we move on to the next department. Anyone else wanna go?"

Nora ran out of her seat with her weapon halfway out of her backpack, Magnhild. Bill accepted her challenge as well since he knew that Nick would give him a bouns whether he lose or won. Knowing that Bill still won't go easy as these people are trained and ready for a fight. This could be one of the rare jobs that are fun.

Bill got into place with his rifle-sword and Nora with Magnhild in hammer form. At the go, Nora charged and Bill jumped, avoid her Magnhild. Bill speedily loaded the rifle with explosive bullets while aiming at Nora mid-air. Nora barely reacted in time to dodge a direct hit but the blast still pushed Nora away from Bill when he landed again. There was a standstill for a moment. Bill couldn't let Nora get to close, but Nora had to get closer to hit Bill. With a quick thought, Nora stuck Magnhild face down and fired to launch herself at Bill. Bill shock by the sight was unable to react to her swing on the way down. He was also sent into the wall. Sadly for him, he would have to be sent to the clinic in the building.

Nick gave Bill a bouns as well and a bit more to pay for the clinic bill. After giving Bill his reward, Nick walked to the group.

"That was two amazing battles showing skill, quick thinking and how capable you are. For this department, we didn't come up with a gift for you two, so we decided that the choice is yours. Nothing out of reason though."

The two were stunned at being given a choice. The two seemed to think about it before answering at the same time.

"I want to fight you!" "I want to fight you!" They had both looked at each other and started giggling about that.

"I guess we can make some time.*Looks to Amy* Tell the next department we've decided to spend a little more time here, so they've earned more time to prepare."

Amy nodded and walked outside the room to make a call.

"This could go multiple ways. We could do 1 on 1 twice or 1 vs 2. I don't mind which, so I will leave it to you two."

Yang and Nora looked to each other and thought for a few minutes as they both wanted to fight him, but they knew winning alone would be difficult. They discussed it and decided. Yang spoke up.

"We have decided to fight you together!"

"Okay then, let's begin."

Nick went to one side of the sparing ring, with Yang and Nora on one side. They all had their weapons readied. Ruby was watching with stars in her eyes as each fight showed a new weapon for her to see.

With Jane giving the all-clear, Nora and Yang charged Nick with weapons out. Nick's gloves shifted into a non-lethal mode to ensure, he didn't hurt anyone by mistake. As Yang near Nick with Nora shortly behind. Nick swung first and knocked Yang back by slamming her with his gloves. Nora arrived on top of Nick with Magnhild ready to smash something under it, Nick just sidestepped it and slammed his gloves against her. Both, Yang and Nora, got back up prepared to take Nick down. They knew Nick wasn't taking this serious by how he fought them so far.

Nodding to each other, Nora used Magnhild to launch herself, while Yang ran low to the ground at Nick. With both of them coming at his side at once, Nick slammed one glove into Magnhild, sending Nora out of the ring with her own flight. The other glove swung land meeting it's brother glove in a power clap. Blowing Yang back to the edge of the ring. Nora was out and Yang was losing already, so there wasn't any point continuing this spar.

"I surrender...or that's what someone else would have said."

Yang was smiling at how thrilling, she was finding this. She was losing, yes, but that didn't stop her from trying. Using her Ember Celica, Yang shot forward to blast her Ember Celica right at Nick. Nick didn't avoid the barrage of blasts in time so smoke collected around him from the blasts. Nick was about to counter-attack Yang when Jane yelled out.

"Yang Wins! Nick's aura has dropped into the red zone from taking all the blast head-on..."

Realizing his rookie mistake, Nick let it go. He didn't let it eat away at him that Yang won.

"Well, I guess you two both won by default... We have to go, though we are behind schedule because of that fight."

Everyone got the point and headed to the Limousine. Everyone sitting in their seats of the car again, look to Nick wanting to know what's the next place.

"I see everyone wants to know where we're going next. The next department is the Dust Department. We do a lot with dust besides using it to power our machines, weapons, and for our mercenaries to use them as power attacks of sorts. We are trying to research more uses for dust. Some of what we've found will be told when we get there."

Weiss being an heiress to a dust company seemed interested in how Bear Corp used it compared to them. Winter didn't seem to care until she heard about the research. Whitley was listening to the whole conversation and seemed more intrigued than he should have.

Nick noticed Whitley's behavior and thought that maybe Jacques caught wind of their invitation and wanted Whitley to steal some secrets. Too bad for him, they weren't gonna give out the more important discoveries. The research found that dust had much more uses if they combined certain elements and the basic elements themselves could be used for a kind of healing agent if it was mixed with the right materials. They haven't tested on diseases and sicknesses yet, but physical injuries healed better and faster with the agent.

The combining of dust for more uses was a company secret, but the healing agent, they planned to reveal to the public after more testing.

Minutes passed and they arrived at the Dust Department. They all stepped out to another big building. There was a sign telling anyone who read it that it was dangerous.

Just as they were about to walk in an explosion happened nearby.

"It seemed that Chief Bane has done it again... Amy have a room prepared for our guest."