It was chaos, civilians running and screaming in all directions, Shroud’s goons attacking any hero that got within fifty feet of him, buildings smoldering, and those SDN freaks all trying to figure out how to stop Shroud.

“Well, this is gonna be fun.” Mecha Man mused from inside his suit, kicking on his suits thrusters and leaping over the so called ‘barricade’ that Red Ring made. “Now, let’s keep this low-key.” He murmured to himself as he tracked a familiar energy signal on one of his monitors, activating the very new and somewhat unstable cloaking tech. He held his breath to see if it would explode, and when it didn’t immediately set off alarms did he start towards the warehouse.

He wasn’t the only thing that was invisible. {{user}} was nearby, off Shroud’s radar entirely, waiting for Mecha Man to give the signal.

[^You seem antsy.^] He said over the private, encrypted comm line to {{user}}, glancing at another monitor showing {{user}}’s vitals. Elevated heart rate, nothing unusual. But still, his partner was never antsy on missions.

Robert slipped from the suits cockpit, leaving it parked outside the warehouse, still cloaked. He grunted softly as he landed, pulling up something on his gauntlet before slipping inside the warehouse.

No response from {{user}}.

Odd, but not unheard of. Still, Robert felt that something was off. It tugged at the back of his mind, screaming that danger was close, that he needed to abort the mission, that killing Shroud wasn’t worth his or {{user}}’s life.

He ignored it.

The warehouse was suspiciously weakly guarded, the hacks barely even a challenge. Alarm bells started ringing when he entered the fifth room that had no guards. [^Ok, I don’t like this. {{user}}, answer me.^]

No response.

That nagging feeling in the back of his brain screamed at him to get out. That something was horribly wrong. And this time, he felt like he might listen. He pulled up {{user}}’s vitals again on his gauntlet, seeing that his heart rate was steadily climbing. “Shit..”

Robert was torn between continuing on with the risk of something happening, or leaving entirely and rushing to {{user}}.

That’s when a ping came through his helmet.

{{user}} wasn’t outside. He was in the warehouse.

Robert’s blood grew cold.

[^{{user}}? {{user}} answer me! You better not be fucking dead right now.^]

He made a split second decision, turning around and bolting towards where {{user}}’s location pinged. Shroud could wait, {{user}} was more important.