Noticed

The simple fact of the matter was that you couldn't predict everything. You couldn't plan for everything. This is especially true for when you're planning against someone else, because then you're dealing with the fact that a good chunk of it is dependent on someone who most likely wants you to fail and possibly die in a fire. Of course, there are many ways to help deal with that because another fact is that we often do go against one another, on many, many different scales for countless reasons.

Personally, I'd been kind of hoping good old surprise would see me through. Surprise was a wonderful thing in any plan; sure, the other guy would try and stop you…if he knew what you were doing, that is. As he does not, his ability to react to, and thus disrupt, your plan is comparatively limited. That's the easiest way to deal with opposition, if you can manage it—don't.

Sadly, many times, even often times, that just wasn't possible. The same thing that made surprise a wonderful asset made it a dire threat if used against you, so people worked hard to keep it from happening to them. Maybe that's what happened here; a layer of security we hadn't noticed before, a lie that didn't add up, and maybe even just bad luck; either way, a problem had occurred.

The bright side is that occurring in plans is what problems did and people had been dealing with that for years, too. A lot of times, we try to plan ahead—the best way to never be caught off-guard is to be prepared for everything, after all. Rarely possible, unfortunately, but a nice thought and we do our best. Adam, Blake, and I had made a number of plans, though, and back up plans and more and while I wasn't arrogant enough to believe they covered everything, we covered what we could.

For that reason, I paused for a moment. With some unknown figure approaching, with Blake telling me we had a problem, with no idea what to expect, I calmly remained seated and thought things through.

A big part of planning ahead is, naturally, preparation—that being the very point of making a plan, after all. The same is true of contingencies and backups and, really, training of any kind. You make a lot of plans so you know what to do and how to react, if something happens, or to give yourself more options. A lot of the time, these are done in broad strokes out of necessity, because you just don't know what will happen, but that same thing can reduce a plan's effectiveness because it's not built for a specific problem. At times like that, you need something better.

Which is why the hilarious truth about planning is that often times, you practice and prepare and think over and spend lots of time on it—and then some step gets really blurry all of a sudden and you just have to think on your feet since step three suddenly became 'figure out how to make it to step four.' You hear a lot of comparisons battles and life and whatever to games like…well, like chess. Chess is a common one, used in all sorts of metaphors about wars and combats and battle.

I didn't see it. I wasn't a veteran of battles by any means but I'd gotten some experience in the last three weeks or so and I honestly didn't see it. I mean, I guess if you tilted your head at it and squinted, chess might be like a battle. If you couldn't always see the pieces. And if there were more pieces. And if the pieces could move however they wanted, move themselves, leave the game, come back in, switch sides, and had thoughts, feelings, and opinions. So, yeah, not really like chess at all.

But that didn't necessarily mean you couldn't play the game.

'I'll handle my side, you handle yours,' I sent back to Blake as I stood. 'This isn't over yet.'

'Okay,' She replied a moment later.

This wasn't chess and Blake and Adam weren't my pieces. They were people, they're own people, and each probably had vastly more experience than I did in terms of things going wrong. I trusted them and I knew they could handle themselves in a situation; I didn't need to hold their hands in a fight or anything. If anything, it was the other way around on that particular battlefield, so I banished that side of the problem from my mind completely and focused instead on my own. I had the most important job now—the ship—so I gave it my full attention.

First things first, I opened my Inventory. I was still in the uniform I'd used to sneak onboard the ship and now I needed a change. I looked at Crocea Mors, at Dreary Midnight and my masks, and they were tempting, so very tempting.

But no. See, everyone always hears about the dangers of underestimating an opponent—and that was true and you shouldn't. But something you hear about less often that's just as important? Don't overestimate them, either.

It was easy to hear about the problem, to see that someone had entered the ship, and assume the worse. That my cover had been blown, that they knew everything, that they were coming for me. It's dangerously simple to see a problem and make connections that weren't there, to blame everything on someone else, to give in to sudden desperation and fear. Something goes wrong while you're plotting against someone; it's easy to assume they were responsible, that you underestimated them, that beneath it all everyone was some super genius.

But was that the case? Probably not. It was common enough to hear things like 'I don't believe in coincidences,' but then what do you believe in when something random or unlikely happens. I had more reason to think that way than most, since I had a stat that might well be able to manipulate probability, but even then, I'd seen a fair amount of stuff I'd attribute to chance and a fair number of plots in movies and games and stuff that made me go 'sorry, no, you'd have to be God to plan all that.'

Did I believe then, that we'd just fallen into an elaborate trap, that someone had known all along or else found out in time to set us up? That they'd allowed me to get this far to catch me here, now? A part of me wanted to, wanted to point out that Adam and Blake had recently suffered difficulties and now I was too, and wonder how they could have done it, but that didn't add up.

I wasn't certain what kind of trouble Adam and Blake had run into—I didn't hear any explosions yet, which I figured was a good sign—but whatever it was, if it had given me away, why send just one person? Maybe she was an expert Huntress like my mother, but if I was the one in charge of something this big and I suspected someone was attempting anything like I was attempting, there would be more than a small, calm response.

Furthermore, thinking about it with the calm granted by the Gamer's Mind, how would they know it was me? Ignoring the things I know I'd done out of sight, what could have given me away? Again, I could have given into the urge to believe I was dealing with super geniuses who could spot the slightest inconsistency, but I knew that wasn't true. Most of my plan had been built on that not being true. Getting the information about the ship, getting onto the ship, and more, all proof of that people were people. I had gotten passed some of the best security money could by and then onto a cutting edge airship purely on that fact. So then, what had given me away?

Maybe, just maybe, nothing. In which case going out in a Grimm mask and a black cloak would blow my cover needlessly.

With one last glance at my items, I shifted my attention downwards and equipped the flight attendant suit I'd stolen beforehand and left the cockpit.

I followed the woman I sensed through the ship, careful to take a different route so we wouldn't meet until I wanted us to. To my relief, she hadn't even gone in the direction of the cockpit, but instead towards the passenger section. A passenger coming onboard even earlier than expected? I began thinking of explanations for why I'd need to remove her from the ship—

Which all went down the drain the moment I saw her.

She stood by one of the many windows, face expressionless, maybe even sad, as she grazed the glass with her finger nails. She was dressed in light blues and whites—dress, boots, and jacket all made to match in what was probably a custom design. A flash of red, stark against the rest of her ensemble, stood out brightly in her raised collar, drawing attention from the pale colors, but even then, between light blue eyes, white hair, and pale skin, I looked at her and thought of snow.

Fitting, given the words written above her head.

The Loneliest of All

LV31

Weiss Schnee

Wonderful. Just…wonderful.

I recovered quickly as I saw her turn my way looking a bit startled, and adopted a smile.

"Ah," I said, thinking fast. "I hadn't realized we'd begun boarding yet. May I…"

I tilted my head to the side, trailing off.

"Oh! Ms. Schnee!" I said as if only just now recognizing her. "I apologize. I hadn't known you'd be flying with us today. Will your father be joining us as well?"

Please say no.

Weiss Schnee smiled at me for a moment, but something about it seemed just a bit off.

"No, no, neither of us will be flying today," She said pleasantly, but when I Observed her, I saw that she was anxious behind her fake smile. "I simply wanted to take a look at this beautiful ship before it departed."

Something about how she said that struck me as false, even without using Observe again. Maybe it was just the tip off of her title, but…

I bowed slightly at her, nodding minutely.

"Would you like me to escort you then, Ms. Schnee?" I asked. "I have finished with my duties for the moment and the ship is easy to get lost in."

I saw her expression become ever so slightly more strained and her emotions shifted slightly. As she nodded, I could see a bit of displeasure, but more resignation.

"That would be lovely, Mr.…"

"Hamelin," I said, drawing upon one of the fake names I'd made up as I gestured down the hallway with one arm. "This way, please."

She walked by without another look at me and I stood just a step behind, where I could move into her blind spot quickly if I had to.

I was hoping I wouldn't. Given her level—and the implied training she must have received—it was unlikely a quick takedown would be possible again, to say nothing of her Aura. And if it came to a fight inside the ship…well, it would be dangerous, but more than that, it was likely to be noticeable and could cause damage to the ship. I needed time to think of a strategy, a way of getting her off the ship peacefully, if at all possible.

I looked her over again, Observing her closely. Her stats were biased in the direction of Intelligence and she possessed an impressive amount of MP. A similar glance at the sword by her side—and how did she get away with bringing that in here?—labeled it as 'Myrtenaster' and a 'Multi Action Dust Rapier.' I noted white, yellow, blue, red, light blue, and purple Dust set into what looked like a revolver chamber inside the rapier's guard, and between that and her family name, it seemed safe to assume she was a Dust user, though what that truly meant depended on how she chose to use it.

It was still good to know. Just in case.

"I apologize," I said, both to buy time think things through and to satisfy my curiosity.

"For what?" Weiss asked in return, but there was a type of tension in her voice. I considered my words carefully for a moment before answering.

"I got the impression that I may have interrupted something," I said truthfully. "And you seemed somewhat upset by my appearance—resigned, perhaps. And for that I apologize."

I saw her fingers twitch, but she said nothing. I was sure that if I'd been able to see her face, she'd have been frowning.

I didn't speak again until I'd led her to the first class area and viewing deck. Here, the sun shined upon the opulence within through one of the largest windows I'd ever seen, displaying a room that looked like it was out of a movie, with plenty of open space, comfortable looking seats, personal screens for each, and much more.

More importantly to me, however, there was an easy pathway from here to one of the exits. If I was lucky, I'd be able to convince her to leave by the time I led her there. If not…well, I'd have to improvise. Either way, though, I needed to do this quickly, before other people started showing up. Or even before Blake and Adam got here, because I honestly wasn't sure how they'd react to the company heiress.

I wasn't even sure how I was supposed to react to the company heiress. Should I take her hostage now? I really didn't want to do that and even if I didn't find it really uncomfortable morally, every way I could see it ending looked bad, just some less than others. What I really wanted was to get her off the ship without complicating this any further, but…

"It's not really my place," I began again after a minute of admiring the view, trying a different approach. "But does your father know you're here?"

"You're right," She said after a moment of silence. "It's not your place."

I fell silent at that, feeling a little bad even as I started thinking of ways to use it to get her off the ship. I was pretty sure I could, was the good news, but I kept thinking of her title, wondering what you had to do to get something like that pasted above your head. I wondered about titles for other people in general, honestly—like, what did they mean? What did they even do? Could they change? I assumed they could, since I couldn't see Adam being born 'The Beast', but if they changed…

I repressed a sigh, forcing myself to focus. I glanced around, thinking about my next words, but she spoke before I could.

"I wasn't going to run away." Weiss said firmly after several seconds of awkward silence. I stared at her quietly for a moment and then nodded, even though she couldn't see it.

"I believe you," I said and when silence fell again, added. "You don't really seem like the type who'd run away. But it's interesting to consider sometimes, isn't it? Running away and leaving behind the expectations and…everything."

I thought I could almost hear her teeth grinding and for just a moment I wondered if she'd start yelling at me. But when she answered, her voice was soft.

"Only a coward runs away from their problems."

"Perhaps," I agreed. "That doesn't mean the brave don't consider it, though. I like to think that by having the option and choosing not to, we become brave."

She slowly stopped walking and looked down, hair covering her eyes. I stopped behind her and let her consider that for a moment before continuing.

"I don't have any right to talk about your problems, but…I used to think about it too, sometimes. When I was alone for weeks and…" I let myself trail off again, trying to strike the balance between making a connection and not telling her anything about myself. "And that's always what I thought, after. I don't know if it's really true and sometimes I wondered if it was just another way of being scared, but…it helped, I think. And I knew that my parents were…"

Weiss turned her head and looked back at me with irritation shining in her eyes.

"You don't know anything," She almost snarled. "I—"

She visibly cut herself off and turned away again.

I looked at her quietly and reached out to put a hand on her shoulder after some deliberation.

"I won't tell my boss I saw you," I said gently. "Or your father or anyone. So let's go, okay?"

I had her now, I thought. I had no idea how I felt about how easily I could manipulate someone's emotions, besides a little sick, but I did. I was pretty sure she'd let me lead her out if I asked. I wondered what she'd think we she figured out why I was actually here or if she'd think I was just another casualty of the White Fang, but for now, I could remove her from this ship before anything else went wrong—

I had to struggle to contain a scream of frustration when I heard explosions.

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