A Quick Extraction

Job Details:

Job Sign-Up: Page 32, Post Number 782

-Fat Monsterland, 10:00 P.M.-

Wearing her navy blue long-sleeved shirt with navy blue cargo pants and black boots with backpack and SHG-IV smart glasses, Diana held Saint Sinner Valentine at the ready as she crossed the threshold of Fat Monsterland after passing through the Abandoned Cabin area. Inside her backpack was the same special iLac she had carried throughout Fulci Hospital. Mister Burke requested that she carry it so that he would have video proof of the accident to present to his superiors, a request which she readily accepted because Mister Burke was the closest thing to a "favorite" client she had. He always treated her with respect and always gave her all the information his superiors would allow him to give her concerning jobs. Another thing in his favor was that he paid very well for her help.

"Man, it's dark. I can't see a thing from up here!" Ami reported. Somewhere overhead was Ami, that faithful android companion who had helped Diana complete several high-risk jobs thanks to her ability to be an eye in the sky and a source of air support should it be needed.

"Keep an eye out for a crash site. A cargo plane went down somewhere in this area." Diana requested.

Diana had just passed by a cluster of bushes when she heard the moan of nearby zombies and paused in place to look behind her. About thirty minutes ago she had had to kill a few zombies in the Abandoned Cabin area and was sure that she had taken care of them all, but she looked behind her to make absolutely sure that she had not acquired a trail of rotting stalkers. She spotted one about 50 meters behind her, a zombie with a missing left arm and wearing green hunting clothing plus an empty quiver on his back. He must have been a hunter before his untimely death.

Diana turned around and calmly raised Saint Sinner Valentine, aimed for its head, and fired a single shot to the forehead that brought down the hunter zombie that had been "stalking" her for who knew how long.

Once Diana had made the killshot she looked all around her. She was pretty sure that more zombies would be shuffling this way to investigate the source of the noise and she wanted to be ready for them. While she looked around for trouble Mister Burke's voice cut through the silence.

"Hello, Miss Winchester? I heard a gunshot. Are you all right?" He asked her.

"I am fine. I just had to deal with a lone zombie who had been following me." Diana replied in the affirmative.

"I apologize that your next job for me had to be here. Lately it seems that neither of us can avoid contending with the undead." Mister Burke apologized for having her come out here for the job.

"It is fine. I understand that you had more aircraft trouble?" Diana assured him that she did not mind a challenging assignment before inquiring about the nature of the job. Mister Burke sighed.

"That is an understatement, Miss Winchester. I fear that we have lost a second cargo plane to engine trouble. Of course you know that it went down in Fat Monsterland... the job notice said as much." Mister Burke lamented.

"This is my first time in Fat Monsterland. What exactly am I looking for?" Diana asked him.

"Well, you are looking for the cargo plane that went down in the area. Since it is nighttime I am afraid that you will have a tough time seeing the smoke from the wreck. I suggest that you follow your nose." He suggested to her.

"What do I do once I find the crash site?" Diana asked the most important question of all.

"You are to look for survivors, Miss Winchester. If there is anyone alive at the crash site, do your best to bring them to Shirotsume alive. If no one is left alive, then you are to secure the plane's black box and bring it back to me." He answered.

"What if the crash survivors are zombies by the time I find them?" Diana asked.

"Then you are authorized to end their suffering. No legal or financial penalty will be incurred for doing so." He answered plainly. Diana found that response to be a bit cold, but ultimately it was the most practical option. Earthland already had enough trouble without even more zombies getting out of Fat Monsterland and spreading the disease.

"Very well then." Diana said as she kept moving forward. She began to look for any signs of a plane crash like a smoke trail, a fire, or even scattered debris. She had found none of those so far, but she had just gotten into Fat Monsterland, so she was sure that what she was after was deeper inside the area. Thankfully Diana had had the presence of mind to bring Ami along to make the search go a little bit faster. While Ami made a good eye in the sky, Diana was not sure if the android had night vision capability or not, so the android would have to fly at treetop level to spot zombies or other threats waiting for Diana.

Diana walked though a clearing and used her night vision to look around for threats but did not see any... yet. She kept Saint Sinner Valentine ready as she moved through the clearing. She noticed that a six-point star or some other symbol with some connection to the occult had been burned into the ground through some unknown means. Diana was pretty sure that that was a sign of cult activity, but she did not have the time or the inclination to try and identify it. She had bigger concerns.

Diana pressed through the clearing and was approaching another wooded path when she heard Ami give a warning.

"Zombies about twenty meters ahead of you, Diana! These guys are kinda big and they're carrying meat cleavers!" Ami warned Diana. Diana looked forward and used her enhanced vision in conjunction with her night vision to spot them. There were seven of them and they had somehow caught wind of her presence. Their meat cleavers gleamed menacingly in the moonlight.

"JOIN US!" One of them bellowed in a deep voice. Diana had no intention of dying in this place. She raised Saint Sinner Valentine and got ready for a fight.

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Diana answered the call to join the undead with a single shot to the forehead of one of the obese zombies walking towards her, but to her surprise it did not die. Its obesity had provided it with a sort of body armor that could stop normal rounds from punching through to its brain. Fortunately Diana did not have to rely on just normal rounds... she tapped the button and switched to Armor-Piercing Rounds and sidestepped a thrown meat cleaver while she waited the five seconds for the magazine to change ammunition types.

Once Saint Sinner Valentine was reloaded Diana ducked under another meat cleaver that had been thrown at her, then fired at the head of the first obese zombie to approach her. She fired a single shot to the forehead and hurt it because it lurched forward and almost fell over, but it soon regained its footing and resumed stumbling towards Diana with a bleeding hole in its forehead. The huntress was surprised by this... not even Armor-Piercing Rounds could kill it in one shot. Diana fired two more shots into its forehead and it was badly hurt but still kept coming.

Diana slung her rifle onto her right shoulder and resorted to her most reliable spell. She channeled silver energy into her body and pointed her hands outward. Once the spell was ready Diana aimed and fired In Nomine Luna.

"IN NOMINE LUNA!" Diana called out. The wide silver beam hit the obese zombies and disintegrated them without any issues. Diana took a deep breath and waited a minute or two to see if any more obese zombies were heading her way. After a five-minute wait she brought out Saint Sinner Valentine, reloaded it, and resumed her journey through Fat Monsterland. She had not heard any more updates from Ami, so the huntress assumed that the path ahead was clear.

Diana walked into the woods and kept an ear out for trouble as she moved deeper into hostile territory. She was just about to enter the forest when she got a report from Ami.

"Hey Diana, while you were busy fighting those zombies I went further ahead and saw a crash site! It's about 1,500 meters northwest from your current position!" Ami came in with a report to the location of the crash site. Diana was pleased to hear this. Maybe she could hitch a ride on Ami instead of having to walk all the way through the woods.

"Ami, could you carry me to the crash site?" Diana asked.

"Sure, but I'm having a hard time seeing you on the ground from this high up. Do you have a light you can hold up so I can see you?" Ami replied in the affirmative before asking a question of her own. Diana looked down and rummaged through her left side cargo pocket and pulled out a thin cylindrical object. It was a glowstick from the Urban Nights event a few months ago!

How did that get in her pocket?

She must have absentmindedly stashed it in her pocket in case she needed a light.

She had no idea how the glowstick really got there, but she was certainly glad to see it. Diana bent it and it began to glow purple. She then took the purple glowstick in her left hand and held it up, waving it in the sky left and right.

"Uh, Diana, I'm see a purple light near the woods. It's moving from side to side. Is that some kinda ghost?" Ami asked.

"No, Ami. It is me. I am waving a purple glowstick that I got at a party a few months ago." Diana answered without sarcasm.

"Oh, sweet! I see you and I'm heading your way!" Ami said to her. Diana continued waving the glowstick and looked towards the sky for her android companion. Ami was about ten meters overhead and descending. She descended to a meter and slowly banked over the clearing to lose speed... moments later she skidded to a halt next to Diana.

"Oh, hey Diana! Using that glowstick as a signal was a good idea! Like I said, visibility at any height other than treetop level sucks!" Ami complimented Diana on her idea.

"Thanks. Do you think you can carry me to the crash site?" Diana repeated her question. Ami flashed a thumbs-up.

"Yeah, I can do that. Just hang on tight!" Ami said. Ami approached Diana from behind shortly after the blonde had put away the glowstick in the same cargo pocket she had produced it from. Diana felt a pair of arms wrap tightly around her waist and moments later her feet left the ground as Ami flew straight up into the air. She then took off to the northwest as Diana remained calm.

-In the sky-

"Miss Winchester, I heard the exchange between you and your companion. I also heard the fight with the zombies. Are you OK?" Mister Burke asked her.

"I am fine, Mister Burke. Ami and I are on the way to the crash site now. I am traveling by air to get to the crash site as quickly as possible." Diana reported back to the client. As she was being carried over the forest she looked down and saw many humanoid shapes scattered throughout the area below her. While she could have easily killed them all with Saint Sinner Valentine or her magic, not having to fight the zombies meant that she saved a lot of time and energy, time and energy she could use to look for survivors and the cargo plane's black box.

"Splendid. Just to reiterate, rescue any survivors you can and make sure that you retrieve the black box. We will need the data in it to determine whether what happened was just bad luck or a case of sabotage." Mister Burke reminded Diana of her objectives.

"Understood." Diana replied. She looked away from the forest floor and towards the northwest. She did not see anything yet, but she saw what she thought was a wisp of smoke drifting towards the sky. The huntress was not very optimistic about finding any survivors, but there was always the possibility that one or two tenacious crew members had clung to life and were waiting for rescue. If there were any survivors Diana would do her best to make sure that they got out of here alive.

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[Total Word Count: 2,140/11,000]

-At the crash site, ten minutes later-

After ten minutes of flying Diana and Ami finally arrived at the crash site. Ami did a loop over the crash site to reduce speed, then slowly descended. Once she had slowed down enough she gently deposited Diana on the ground just outside the fuselage of a crashed four-engine cargo plane before stretching her wings while facing Diana and waiting for new orders.

Diana noticed that the tail had snapped off on impact with the ground and was lying on the ground over 200 meters away from the fuselage, which was badly skinned up from the belly sliding along the ground. She saw that the lower half of the plane's nose had taken the worst of the impact and had crumpled up... she did not feel confident that the pilot and co-pilot had survived the crash, but she would not know for certain until she looked for them. Diana decided to report to Mister Burke that she and Ami had made it to the crash site.

"Mister Burke, Ami and I have made it to the crash site. The tail of the cargo plane snapped off on impact and is sitting roughly 200 meters away from the fuselage. The fuselage is badly damaged, especially the lower half of the nose. I believe that it took the brunt of the crash force." Diana reported to Mister Burke on the condition of the plane.

"I see. Since it is nighttime I doubt that you are going to get any good shots of the cargo plane, so do not worry about that. Focus instead on finding survivors and the plane's black box." He said to her, adding a modest update to her mission objectives. Diana was glad that she no longer had to get photographic evidence of the crash site because the lack of light made it nigh impossible to get good photographs. All she had to do now was look for surviving crew members and the plane's black box.

"Understood. I will enter the fuselage shortly." Diana informed him.

"Be careful, Miss Winchester." Mister Burke said before going silent.

"I am going to enter the fuselage shortly. Stand watch and let me know if you see any zombies approaching." Diana informed her android companion that she was going to enter the fuselage before requesting that the latter watch the huntress' back. While in flight the huntress had looked at the forest below and saw that it was teeming with the undead. She suspected that a few particularly tenacious zombies had followed them to the crash site in search of a meal and were slowly shambling towards them but had not yet made it all the way through the forest. The huntress would use that time to get in and get out before a large gathering of those obese zombies reached them.

"I've got this. You go inside and do what you have to do!" Ami assured the huntress that she would stand watch outside while Diana entered the plane to complete her mission. Diana nodded and entered the cargo plane, ducking her head as she walked under the doorframe that had been warped by the impact.

-Inside the cargo plane-

Diana entered the plane and looked around her. To her left was the path to the cockpit. To the right was what was left of the cargo bay. Inside the cargo bay were loose-lying metal crates that were jarred free of their ropes by the force of the crash... and the bodies of several crewmen. The huntress readied Saint Sinner Valentine and carefully approached the bodies, her footsteps making a soft CLANG with each step taken on the metal floor. Diana's night vision showed her several bodies lying on the cargo bay floor both face-down and face-up.

One unfortunate soul had his lower half crushed by a flying metal crate... the bloodstained crate with a small dent where it had struck its victim lay only a meter from the hapless crewman. Diana switched to infrared vision to pick up the heat signatures of any survivors, but there were no survivors in the cargo bay. Diana turned away from it and towards the cockpit, where to her surprise she saw a faint but noticeable heat signature coming from one of the seats. She briskly walked to the cockpit, carefully stepping over a dead crewman whose neck had been broken when his head slammed into the fuselage ceiling... she could see the dent in the ceiling where his head had made impact.

-In the cockpit-

Diana entered the cockpit and heard groaning coming from the right seat. She raised Saint Sinner Valentine and looked towards the right seat. She saw a man wearing a light blue dress shirt with navy blue dress pants and black dress shoes sitting in the right seat. His face was somewhat cut from the windshield shattering, but that was not his only problem. His left leg was broken!

Diana looked at the seat in front of her and saw a similarly dressed man with his head hanging limply to the left. Dried blood was in the corner of his mouth and the left shoulder of his shirt had dried blood. Diana used her infrared vision to check for heat and saw that the body was cold. The man was dead.

Diana looked to the man in the right seat. His head turned to her and he groaned again. Diana stood her ground and aimed her assault rifle at his head.

"Oh thank Ishgar... thank... Thank Ishgar you're here." He greeted her weakly, either not seeing the weapon aimed at him or choosing not to see it. Part of him might have even welcomed death after sitting in the cockpit of a crashed plane for several hours in the middle of a region infamous for paranormal activity and wondering whether he would die from his wounds or be eaten by those obese zombies. Once she heard him speak a complete sentence Diana lowered her weapon and helped the man unbuckle the seatbelt he had been trapped in. Once he was freed she decided to inform the client of what she had found.

"Mister Burke, I have found the co-pilot. His left leg is broken and his face has some cuts on it, but he is alive." Diana gave Mister Burke a status report.

"Splendid. What about the rest of the crew?" Mister Burke inquired.

"The rest did not make it. They all died on impact." Diana reported solemnly. She heard Mister Burke curse under his breath.

"That is most unfortunate, but it cannot be helped. Have you secured the black box yet?" Mister Burke commented on the fate of the crew before asking if the black box had been secured.

"Not yet, sir. I am looking for it now." Diana reported.

"Very well then. Let me know when you have got it in your hands." He said before going silent.

"Water. Please. Miss, do you have any?" The co-pilot asked Diana as the latter began searching the bottom of the aircraft's instrument panels for the black box.

"Yes. Here, take some." Diana said, taking time out of her search to take off her backpack, fish out a plastic bottle of water, uncap it, and hand it to the man. He took it into his shaking hands and drank from it. While he drank she resumed her search for the black box that Mister Burke wanted. Diana, mindful that she did not have all night to find it and get it and the co-pilot out of here, asked Ami if she had seen any danger.

"Ami, are you seeing anything out of the ordinary?" Diana asked Ami while opening a small door under the instrument panel.

"No, not yet!" Ami reported. Diana was relieved to hear that.

"Thank you." Diana said before she resumed her search for the black box.

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Diana reached into the open panel and began to feel around. Switching on night vision mode to cut through the darkness, Diana spotted the black box a short distance away from her right hand. She reached inside the open panel with both hands, grabbed it, and began to gently disconnect it from the wires, working quickly and carefully. Holding the box with her left hand and using her right to disconnect it, after a few minutes of careful work the huntress had disconnected the black box. She pulled her prize out and notified Mister Burke.

"Mister Burke, I have secured the cargo plane's black box." Diana updated him. She located her backpack and set the black box onto the plane's floor, then opened the backpack and placed it inside for safekeeping. Once the black box was safely inside she shut the backpack and zipped it back up. She looked at the floor to make absolutely sure that she did not leave the prize behind in a frantic dash for safety. It was nestled safely in the backpack.

"Well done, Miss Winchester. Now get out of there. Proceed to Shirotsume as quickly as possible." Mister Burke instructed.

"Understood. I am preparing the survivor for transport now." Diana informed him. She quickly put on the backpack, then turned her attention to the co-pilot, who was sitting in the chair and trying to move.

"Damn. My leg. It's broken." He complained to her. Diana looked at him.

"Do not worry. I am not leaving you here." Diana told him shortly before she heard moaning in the distance. The co-pilot's face showed worry that the huntress might go back on her word and leave him in the plane to save herself now that she had what she came for. He need not have worried about that. Diana always honored the contract.

"I am preparing to move you. Since your leg is broken, you may feel... discomfort." Diana informed him. She reached down for the man. He reached up for her with both arms and she grabbed them, easing him into a standing position on his one good leg. He groaned a little as she slowly lifted him into her left shoulder.

"I apologize for how I am carrying you, but we must hurry." Diana apologized for how she was carrying the wounded man. Moaning sounded again as if to emphasize the point that they had to hurry up.

"I. I don't care. Just get me out of here! I don't want those damn zombies to eat me!" He urged her. Diana nodded.

"Very well. We are leaving now." Diana said to him before turning around and gently carrying the co-pilot out of the cockpit.

-Inside the cargo plane-

Diana slowly and gently walked down the cramped corridor that led to the cockpit, being mindful not to brush the wounded man's leg against anything lest she hurt him more. She had made it halfway down the corridor and was stepping over the body of a dead crewman when she heard the fateful report from Ami.

"Um, Diana... I'm seeing some big beefy dudes with meat cleavers heading my way. What do I do?" Ami asked Diana. Diana was not happy to hear that.

"I am heading for you now. Try to kill as many of them as you can while I extract the co-pilot. Aim for the head and use any armor-piercing ammunition you have because the body fat on their skull makes ordinary ammunition useless against them." Diana ordered. She had learned the hard way that conventional ammunition was useless against them. So was conventional armor-piercing ammunition. She was sure that a round from an anti-materiel rifle could get through, but Diana did not have access to one of those weapons. At least her magic could harm them regardless of any natural protection they had.

Diana continued to carefully move through the cargo plane and reached the three-quarters mark when she peeked out of one of the plane's many shattered windows. She saw Ami fire a pencil-thin beam of light from her arm cannon and heard one of the obese zombies groan before falling to the ground and landing on its left side, its unnatural life brought to an abrupt end. Diana did an eyeball count and saw at least twenty more of those zombies converging on the crash site. She then tore herself away from the window and proceeded towards the doorway.

Once she reached it Diana slowly stooped down and placed her right hand on the co-pilot's head to protect it from the top of the doorway. She carefully looked to the cargo bay to do one last sweep for survivors, switching to infrared vision to check for any heat signatures that she might have missed the first time. There were no heat signatures, so she turned back to the doorway and switched to night vision, then left the plane.

-Outside the plane-

Diana got through the doorway without any trouble and quickened her pace now that she was not in the close confines of the plane anymore. Ami was busy dispatching a fourth zombie who was shambling towards the crash site. She had fired a pencil-thin beam that punched through its skull with ease. It groaned and fell face-first to the ground.

"Ami, are you OK?" Diana asked the android.

"Yeah, but those dudes are all over the forest! You can't throw a rock without hitting one!" Ami told Diana. Diana looked towards the forest and saw what her android companion meant. There were at least twenty emerging from the woods plus another twenty-something zombies still in the forest, but that was nowhere near all of them. Far from it.

"JOIN US!" An obese zombie bellowed at them.

"Oh, and did I mention that they say that? A LOT?" Ami sarcastically added. Diana thought of an escape plan for her and the co-pilot. The huntress would have Ami fly the man to safety while she escaped on foot. The plan was far from ideal, but there was no way the man could run on a broken leg and Diana did not want to make him do that if it could possibly be avoided.

"Ami, I need you to do something for me." Diana said to Ami in a serious tone. Ami turned around and faced Diana.

"What is it?" Ami asked her mistress. The undead were starting to close the distance, so Diana had better hurry up and get Ami to carry the man to safety before it was too late. If Ami did not take off soon she might never get to take off.

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"I need you to carry this man to safety. I need you to get him to Shirotsume." Diana told Ami. The android blinked because she did not understand what Diana had asked of her. Diana stooped down a little and handed the man to Ami.

"Be very careful, Ami. He has a broken leg." Diana warned Ami of the man's injury. Ami carefully took the man and held him bridal style. Once he was safely in the android's arms Diana turned to the oncoming horde and charged for an In Nomine Luna spell. Once it was ready Diana stepped forward and cast the spell, aiming for a gaggle of the undead who were positioned between her and the second wave of zombies who were still in the forest.

"IN NOMINE LUNA!" Diana called out. The wide silver beam was fired from her hands and engulfed twelve of the approaching zombies in the blast, disintegrating them plus five more zombies behind them for a total of seventeen zombies destroyed in one casting. Once she had bought them a little breathing room she turned back to Ami.

"Take off immediately. Get him to safety!" Diana instructed. Ami blinked. Diana repeated the instruction.

"Take off immediately. There is no time!" Diana urged Ami.

"But what about you?" Ami asked. The zombies were getting closer. Diana had bought them some time by killing twelve of the closest zombies, but it was not much time because for every zombie she had killed with In Nomine Luna two more seemed to replace it.

"Do not worry about me. Take off immediately!" Diana repeated her instructions to the winged android. Ami looked at Diana before reluctantly complying. She flexed her wings and took off straight into the air with the co-pilot held firmly in her arms.

Now that Ami was airborne Diana turned back to the approaching zombies and began to charge another In Nomine Luna spell to clear out some of those still in the forest, which was her intended escape route. Ignoring the gleaming meat cleavers that the zombies carried, she waited until twenty zombies had clustered together before firing the spell. Once the spell was ready and the requisite number of zombies had massed together Diana aimed for the mass of zombies in the forest and fired the spell.

"IN NOMINE LUNA!" Diana called out. The silver beam engulfed the zombies and disintegrated them, blowing a gaping hole in their numbers. It was a hole big enough for Diana to take advantage of to make her escape. Charging and firing a Spirit Drain Beam at a zombie who was within thirty meters of her, Diana watched it go up in pale blue flame and stagger towards her before dropping to the ground. Once it was down the huntress broke into a run, ignoring the remaining zombies who were converging on the crash site and heading for the forest she had flown over earlier.

-Inside the forest-

Diana brought Saint Sinner Valentine into a ready position as she ran through the forest, weaving past isolated zombies and avoiding large groups of them the best she could. There were far too many of them for her to fight. Fighting them was not the objective anyway... surviving and getting the black box back to Mister Burke was the objective.

Diana hurried past a quintet of obese zombies who turned to try and hit her with thrown meat cleavers, but the huntress was far too fast for them and was out of range by the time they could turn to face her. The blonde happened to look up and saw Ami zooming overhead just above the treetops.

"I can't carry you, but I'm gonna guide you out of the forest! I'll keep a watch for large groups of zombies and give you warning so that you can blast them with that Luna spell of yours!" Ami informed Diana. She was out of range of the zombies and Diana was drawing their attention; they were so fixated on her that they did not even know that Ami and the co-pilot existed. Diana would make sure it stayed that way.

"OK." Diana replied as she kept moving forward. She recalled that it was approximately 1,500 meters between the crash site and the clearing where Ami had picked her up for aerial transport. This was going to be a long run that would tax her endurance, but Diana could not afford to dawdle. She glanced behind her and saw all the zombies that she had bypassed coalesce into a giant horde of forty-plus zombies and every last one of them were shambling right for her.

"JOIN US!" Came the familiar call of the dead as Diana continued to run through the forest. Eight meters ahead of her loomed an obese zombie that happened to be right in her path. Diana shifted Saint Sinner Valentine to her left hand and raised her right hand, preparing another Spirit Drain Beam. Once it was ready Diana approached to within three meters before firing the beam. It hit the target in the torso and the zombie caught fire, shambling towards her with meat cleaver raised in an effort to make sure she followed it to the grave.

Diana easily avoided it by running wide left and bypassing it as it tried to get in range to use its meat cleaver. It groaned in what sounded like a mix of pain and frustration as it collapsed to the ground and lay motionless on its face. Diana continued to run as she followed the path that led to the clearing and to relative safety. Approximately sixty meters ahead of her loomed a large group of obese zombies that barred the path. They were too spread out to hit them all with In Nomine Luna, so she would just have to blast a hole in the middle of them and run through it.

"I count thirty-five zombies about sixty meters ahead of you!" Ami warned Diana, who had slung Saint Sinner Valentine onto her right shoulder and was preparing another In Nomine Luna spell with which to clear the path. Once it was ready Diana aimed for the middle of the undead roadblock and fired the spell.

"IN NOMINE LUNA!" Diana called out. The spell engulfed twenty of the zombies, thinning out their numbers just enough for her to slip by them if she moved now. Diana crouched down and used a Reaper's Sprint spell to perform a "flash step" and zip 100 meters past them, effortlessly making it through the rotting roadblock and leaving them groaning helplessly at her as she left them behind. She was not sure how many meters more she had to go before she would reach the clearing, but she had already committed to traversing the forest, so there was no going back now.

"I estimate that we have 1,200 more meters between us and the clearing." Ami said to Diana.

There she had it. An estimate straight from her eye in the sky. Diana still had a lot of ground to cover before she was out of the proverbial and literal woods, so she had better keep going.

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[Total Word Count: 5,756/11,000]

-In the clearing, thirty minutes later-

Diana had run, dodged, and fought her way past large groups of zombies on her way through the forest and now she was standing in the clearing where the six-pointed star was burned into the ground. The huntress took this chance to catch her breath before making her escape from Fat Monsterland with the co-pilot of the cargo plane and its black box. Her legs were finally starting to hurt and it felt like she had been running a marathon... which she had done, in a way. She had been running for thirty minutes straight with only the occasional pause to disintegrate a cluster of zombies with In Nomine Luna in order to clear the way for still more running. Now she stood several hundred meters from safety and only needed to muster the energy needed to escape Fat Monsterland and begin the trek back to Shirotsume.

It had been quite the run. Diana had to duck and weave past a few of those obese zombies and nearly lost a chunk of her hair to those meat cleavers on at least two separate occasions. Speaking of her hair, she needed to find a way to tie it back for future jobs in this area because the zombies had tried to grab it and had nearly succeeded. She should have known better than to go into a zombie-infested area with long hair flowing freely, but quite frankly she did not expect there to be this many zombies. It was like every zombie in Fat Monsterland had come out to greet her.

"Hey Diana, are you OK?" Ami asked her mistress. Diana sidelined thoughts about her hair and took a deep breath.

"I am OK. I am a bit tired, that is all." Diana replied. If all she had had to do was run in a straight line she would have been fine. However, each time she had to suddenly dodge meat cleavers or a zombie reaching for her hair had put a bit of additional strain on her tired legs. It was all part of the job, though. Her consistent success in dangerous situations was why people continued to employ her for jobs like this.

"We still have a ways to go to reach Shirotsume and the guy you're having me carry is OK right now, but I wouldn't dawdle around here if I were you. He's gonna need medical attention pronto!" Ami reminded Diana that it was not just the two of them who were in danger. The co-pilot had a broken leg and facial lacerations that were not terribly deep but could possibly be infected from the broken windshield. Diana took another deep breath and exhaled. She looked around her for any zombies who had managed to follow her out of the forest. If a sizable number of them had followed her Diana would eliminate them before she left so that she was not the indirect cause of a zombie horde roaming beyond Fat Monsterland's borders and attacking people. While there was a certain risk of it happening anyway because zombies did not have a concept of "territory" like wild animals, Diana did not want to be responsible for the loss of innocent lives.

"OK. We will keep going." Diana replied as she looked around one last time. She had lost the undead in the forest, but she would make it a point to eliminate any lone zombies she could find on the way out before she left to eliminate the chances of them following her out of the area. If it was just her and Ami she would eliminate the zombies in the forest as well, but eliminating any zombies she saw on the way out would be a good compromise. With that settled Diana began walking towards the exit while Ami flew overhead with the co-pilot.

-Shirotsume, eight hours later-

Waking into Shirotsume in what looked to be late morning, Diana had to kill quite a few zombies on her way out of Fat Monsterland, an activity which had delayed the huntress but was something that had to be done to make sure that any towns and villages she had left behind were safe. Ami landed beside her mistress. Diana contacted Mister Burke to let him know that she was in Shirotsume.

"Mister Burke, I am now in Shirotsume with both the co-pilot and the black box." Diana informed him.

"Well done, Miss Winchester. Take the co-pilot to the hospital, then report to me. I am sending you the coordinates for the hospital now." Mister Burke said to her. A minute later she had received a small holgraphic map of Shirotsume with the hospital clearly marked for her convenience. Diana wordlessly began to walk towards the hospital with Ami following close behind.

-Mister Burke's house, thirty minutes later-

Diana wiped her feet off at the door and Ami followed suit before they knocked on Mister Burke's door. Moments later the door opened and Mister Burke himself opened it.

"Ah, Miss Winchester! Welcome!" Mister Burke welcomed Diana and Ami. Both Diana and Ami raised a hand in greeting.

"Tell me. How is the co-pilot?" Mister Burke asked.

"I took the co-pilot to the hospital. He had a broken leg and some cuts on his face and arms from the glass of the windshield when it shattered during the crash. Doctor Mason of Shirotsume General Hospital told me that we had cut it close with our arrival, but the man would be fine once he had been treated." Diana updated him on the status of the co-pilot. Mister Burke was relieved.

"I am glad to hear that. That man is one of the company's most experienced pilots and it would be a shame to lose him." He said. He then motioned for Diana and her companion to come inside.

"Come inside, Miss Winchester. There are some things that I would like to discuss, things that are of a sensitive nature." He said to her. Diana got the point and nodded.

"Very well then." Diana replied. She stepped inside and Ami followed close behind her. Diana wondered what was so sensitive that the pair had to go inside Mister Burke's home to discuss it. Perhaps it had to do with the black box she had recovered... or perhaps it had to do with the cargo on the plane. She would find out soon enough.

[Post Word Count: 1,070]
[Total Word Count: 6,826/11,000]

-Mister Burke's House, Third Floor Meeting Room-

Diana stood in Mister Burke's meeting room on the third floor of his house while Ami remained outside the room. What he had to tell her was not to leave this room. Diana understood and had sent Ami out so that she did not hear what was going to be discussed. Ami did not feel insulted by being told to wait outside and gladly obliged. Diana had also taken off and deactivated her SHG-IV smart glasses so that nothing sensitive was recorded.

Now it was her and Mister Burke standing in the meeting room. Behind him was a computer projection of a map of Fiore. Marked on it were the crash site in Silent Glaciers, the crash site in Fat Monsterland, and one in Forgotten Deserts.

Diana had handed Mister Burke the black box she had retrieved from the cargo plane and he gratefully accepted it. She was about to hand Mister Burke the special iLac he had loaned her when he gently pushed it back at her. The implication was that she was to keep it for the time being. Diana was surprised by the gesture.

"Keep it, Miss Winchester. You will have need of it soon because I am about to send you back into the field." He said to her. Diana took that to mean that her work was not yet finished and took it with both hands. She then listened to him brief her on what she was to do next.

"I need your help again, Miss Winchester. While you were in Fat Monsterland I received word that yet another one of our cargo planes has gone down due to mechanical failure, this time in Forgotten Deserts. Fortunately the situation here is not nearly as dire as the situation in Fat Monsterland." Mister Burke informed her.

"Are there any survivors?" Diana asked him. Mister Burke nodded.

"Yes. I need you to go to the crash site and rescue them. They reported no serious injuries from the crash and they have enough food and water to last a day or two, but I would like you to rescue them as soon as possible. They are among the most experienced crews that the company has and after what happened in Fat Monsterland we can ill afford to lose any more of them." He replied, explaining why it was imperative for her to rescue them as soon as possible and why he had ordered Diana to rescue any survivors from the crash in Fat Monsterland. Diana noted that the crews of the planes that had went down in Fat Monsterland and Forgotten Deserts were described as "experienced", something which tipped her off that there might be more to this than a simple rescue mission.

"Besides rescuing the survivors, is there anything special I need to do once I get to the crash site in Forgotten Deserts?" Diana asked him. He nodded.

"Yes, Miss Winchester. I would like for you to retrieve the black box from that plane as well." He replied with a simple directive. Diana came up with a question for Mister Burke.

"What if I encounter any outlaws at the crash site or on the way to the crash site?" Diana asked him.

"You may deal with them as you see fit. Kill them, non-lethally incapacitate them, avoid them altogether... I do not care as long as you get the survivors to safety." Mister Burke answered, giving her freedom of action. Chances were high that Diana would end up having to kill them, but she was not particularly upset about that. Her divine patroness Selene did not seem to care at all since outlaws qualified as evil.

"Understood. Ami and I are heading for Forgotten Deserts now." Diana replied. She put the special iLac in her backpack, then left the meeting room to go to Forgotten Deserts. But first she needed to change her clothes. Wearing navy blue clothing in the desert was just asking for heatstroke.

-Eight hours later, Forgotten Deserts-

Diana and Ami arrived on the border of Forgotten Deserts with a fair amount of daylight remaining, but they did not want to dawdle because they did not know if they were the only people looking for the crashed plane. She was not sure if this area was home to any outlaws, but she would not be terribly surprised if it was. Diana had switched from her navy blue outfit to her tan outfit with head wrap and SHG-IV smart glasses. She would need them for her trek through the desert.

"This place looks awfully big, Diana. Where do you think we should start looking for that plane?" Ami asked Diana as the latter powered on her smart glasses. Diana looked towards the horizon and saw a faint but noticeable wisp of smoke rising from the ground a good distance away. Diana wordlessly pointed it out to her android companion.

"Well, that answers that." Ami replied with a tone of voice that was saturated with embarrassment.

"We should head there as quickly as possible. I am not certain if we are the only ones who will be looking for the downed cargo plane. The sight of that smoke will be certain to attract any outlaws looking for easy loot." Diana asserted. Ami flashed a thumbs-up.

"If it's OK with you, I'll fly ahead and make sure that the survivors are OK." Ami suggested to Diana. Diana nodded.

"Go ahead. Let me know what you see the moment you get there." Diana gave her approval to Ami's suggestion. It sounded like a backhanded compliment bordering on a flagrant insult to her companion's intelligence, but Diana was surprised that Ami had come up with the idea. However, that unexpected development was a pleasant surprise. Maybe Ami had an advanced AI that allowed her to think and come up with her own ideas as opposed to her passively taking orders from Diana all the time.

"OK! I'll see you there!" Ami said before taking off. Diana watched her companion get airborne and make a beeline for the crash site before following on foot. Diana was not nearly as fast as her companion, so that was why she had sent Ami ahead to check on the survivors and make sure that they were not under attack from outlaws. The huntress was glad that she had brought Ami with her because the android was a valuable asset on search-and-rescue missions.

Ami's flight speed was good, so she made a good eye in the sky who could avoid trouble simply by flying away from it. She also had a weapon with which to defend herself if she came under attack or if Diana needed air support. Furthermore, Ami could rescue people in hard-to-reach locations by flying down to them, then taking them in her arms and flying straight back up. Diana was glad that Ami was her companion because the huntress would have a difficult time carrying out these kinds of missions without the winged android's invaluable assistance.

[Post Word Count: 1,174]
[Total Word Count: 8,000/11,000]

-Forgotten Deserts, an hour and ten minutes later-

Diana was slogging through the sand while repeatedly thinking to herself how glad she was that she had changed from her navy blue outfit to her tan one before going to the desert. If she had worn the same outfit that she had worn to Fat Monsterland the huntress would be in bad shape right now. She would need rescuing alongside the plane's crew because she would likely have suffered heatstroke from her dark clothing retaining heat much worse than her current outfit did.

As it stood Diana was more than a little warm, but she would survive. At least she was not having to run just yet. Her legs were hurting from the run for her life through the forest in Fat Monsterland and the long walk from Fat Monsterland to Shirotsume. Not helping matters was the long walk from Shirotsume to Forgotten Deserts. She could have taken the railroad to cut travel time by hours, but she was wary of taking public transportation because she never knew if agents of The Shadow Collective were searching for her. If she took public transportation the odds of running into them increased dramatically.

"Hey Diana, are you OK?" Ami asked her mistress out of the blue. Diana was not sure when she would hear from Ami after sending her ahead to check on the survivors of the crash. Diana set her current train of thought aside and responded.

"I am OK, Ami. Have you found the crash site yet?" Diana asked.

"Yeah, which is why I'm calling you. I'm flying over it now. The plane's a mess, but I think I see people taking shelter inside of it. I'm not sure, though." Ami answered in the affirmative, tacking on a report about the plane's shape. Diana knew that a crashed plane was not airworthy, but what had interested her was hearing that there were people taking shelter in the fuselage.

Diana was concerned as to whether they were too late. It was possible that outlaws had already attacked the crash site, killed the survivors, and had taken their place to try and lure rescuers into an ambush. She would still go anyway, if only to eliminate the outlaws so that they could not kill anyone else. Then Diana had an idea.

"Are you able to land and go in on foot?" Diana asked Ami.

"Yeah, I'll go land and check it out." Ami replied.

"I am on the way. It may take me awhile longer to get there, so be careful." Diana warned Ami.

"OK. I'll let you know what I find out!" Ami said before ending communication. Diana continued to move towards the crash site, hoping that she had not sent Ami into an ambush. She doubted that anything short of armor-piercing bullets or anti-tank weapons could do lasting harm to a combat android, but part of Diana did not want to see Ami get hurt in any way even if she were an android. Maybe Diana was finally rediscovering her conscience again after having suppressed it for so long.

"Hey Diana, I've landed and I'm approaching the plane." Ami reported in. Diana listened for an update as she continued to move towards the crash site.

"I'm seeing some people coming out of the plane. They're waving at me." Ami said. Diana was hoping that she had not sent Ami into an ambush. She found herself involuntarily holding her breath while waiting for Ami to give a status update.

"They're pretty friendly. The captain's telling me how their plane crashed and they sent word to Mister Burke about it several hours ago." Ami finally reported on the people she had made contact with. Diana exhaled. She had not sent her companion into harm's way after all.

"OK. Tell them that I am on the way to meet up with them and tell them to stay where they are." Diana ordered.

"OK!" Ami replied before going silent. Diana had to hurry. The concern that she was not the only one who had an interest in the crash site came back to her mind and she wanted to get the crew as far away from the plane as she could before outlaws came calling. She and Ami had weapons with which to defend themselves, but she doubted that the plane's crew had any weapons.

-Two hours later-

There was still a good amount of sunlight as Diana finally reached the crash site after a little over three hours of constant travel through the featureless desert. Diana climbed a sand dune and was greeted by the sight of a cargo plane that was missing its left wing and its tail. Behind it stretched a trench plowed into the earth by the plane that stretched for about 800 meters. Diana spotted Ami about 100 meters away and let her know that the huntress had made it so that she did not get shot.

"Ami, I am standing on top of a sand dune. I am overlooking the crash site. I am coming down, so please do not shoot." Diana requested of her companion. She then recalled the Urban Nights glowstick she had taken out of her navy blue pants and stashed in the side pocket of her tan pants and repeated the trick from earlier, bending the glowstick and making it glow purple so that Ami would know that it was her who was approaching. Diana held it in the air in her left hand so that it could be clearly seen by Ami and the people in the plane.

"I'm seeing a small purple light in the distance. That's you, isn't it?" Ami asked.

"That is me." Diana answered.

"OK, come on down." Ami said. Once it had been confirmed that Ami had seen her and acknowledged her Diana put the glowstick away and walked towards the cargo plane. So far everything had gone well for the huntress. She had reached the crash site before the local outlaws and as far as she knew none of the crew had been seriously hurt in the crash. She would find out once she spoke with the captain and saw the crew for herself.

Diana reached the site after about three minutes of walking and saw a man in a slightly torn light blue dress shirt and dark blue dress pants with black shoes walk over to her and greet her. His right arm was in an improvised sling.

"Hey there. You must be Diana. Your friend over there told us that you'd be arriving some time in the new few hours." The man said, jerking his left thumb back towards Ami, who was standing close to the plane and looking towards Diana.

"Yes. I have been sent here by Mister Burke to rescue you." Diana replied in the affirmative. The man smiled a little.

"I'm glad you're here, Miss. Our emergency transponder was damaged in the crash and no one can lock onto our coordinates to send help. Our radio died on us just after we got confirmation from Mister Burke that someone was on the way. It's like our electronic equipment was rigged to fail or something." He said to her. Diana frowned.

"Interesting. I will let Mister Burke know that I have made contact with you and the other survivors." Diana said. The man nodded and went back to the plane while Diana turned her back and began to speak to Mister Burke about the status of the survivors.

[Post Word Count: 1,254]
[Total Word Count: 9,254/11,000]

"Mister Burke, I have made contact with the survivors of the crash." Diana reported to her client.

"That is excellent news, Miss Winchester. I have been unable to reach the captain after the last transmission was sent and I was growing worried that we were too late to save them. How is the crew?" Mister Burke asked Diana.

"The captain's right arm is in an improvised sling, suggesting that he has an arm injury of some kind. I do not know about the others yet." Diana replied.

"I see." Mister Burke replied laconically. She heard typing on a keyboard and a mouse button click once or twice.

"The captain reported that the emergency transponder was disabled when the plane crashed. Is there another way for you to get our location?" Diana asked the client while walking towards the plane.

"Yes, Miss Winchester. You see, that is why I had you carry the iLac. There is a tracking chip in it. We can track it from our headquarters and know exactly where you are." He answered. Diana was not sure how to feel about that revelation. One one hand, the client could track her location and send help if it was needed. On the other hand, if any of her enemies tapped into the company network and iLac, they could learn her location and send trouble her way.

While she took a breath Diana heard more typing on a keyboard and a couple of mouse clicks. Then she heard some comms chatter before Mister Burke spoke to her.

"I am sending a rescue chopper your way. ETA is about two hours. Please remain with the crew and ensure their safety. Also, please do not forget to get the plane's black box for me." Mister Burke reported before gently reminding the huntress to get the black box with the plane's flight information for examination by his superiors. Diana was glad that the tracking device in the iLac had at least one benign use.

"Understood." Diana replied. Mister Burke then went silent and Diana walked towards the plane to complete the objective. She passed by Ami, who was standing watch outside the door with her arm cannon at the ready in case trouble came calling. Diana had not ordered her to take up a defensive position, so Ami must have done so of her own volition.

"I'm keeping a watch outside the plane, Diana. Soon I'll be taking off to see if anyone else is approaching the crash site." Ami said to Diana. Diana nodded.

"Very well then. Please keep me informed of what is going on." Diana requested. Ami flashed a thumbs-up as Diana entered the plane.

-Inside the plane-

Diana peeked inside the aircraft and saw that the report of no serious injuries among the crew was true. Almost everyone was sitting on the floor and doing their best to stay out of the sun. They had put tarps over all but one or two of the broken windows in order to keep out the sun. Diana looked to the right where the tail had once been and saw gleaming shards of glass lying on the sand. The crew must have swept them off to the side to reduce the risk of someone sitting down or lying down and cutting themselves on shards of glass.

Empty food wrappers and water bottles sat besides the crew. Like Mister Burke said they had provisions with them, so they could afford to wait a little while for help. Diana was glad that she had gotten here before the situation had gotten dire. Being stuck out in the hot desert with no water was a death sentence.

Diana saw that the crew members in the cargo area were all mentally alert because they were looking directly at her; aside from two people with broken legs and one with a broken arm everyone seemed to be in good shape, if a little worse for wear by the crash and the desert heat. She turned away from them and made her way towards the cockpit, where she could see the captain conversing with his co-pilot, a blond man who had his forehead wrapped with gauze. The captain heard Diana approaching from down the corridor and excused himself, then walked towards her.

"I have spoken with Mister Burke. He has sent a rescue chopper and the ETA is two hours." Diana reported to him. The captain smiled.

"Great. We have enough supplies to last us another day, two days if we stretch it. I hope we won't be out here for two more days. My co-pilot sustained a cut on his head when the plane crashed and the cockpit glass shattered. We treated it with antiseptic medicine and wrapped it, but I don't want to wait much longer to get medical attention." The captain replied. Diana peered into the cockpit and saw that while the instrument panel was a complete mess of broken glass and ruined displays, the area below it was intact.

"Mister Burke asked me to retrieve the black box so that it could be analyzed. Is it still accessible?" Diana asked the captain before heading into the cockpit so that he did not think she was here only for the device. He nodded.

"Yeah, it's still accessible. If you hang on I'll get it for you." He said. Diana watched as the captain turned around, walked back into the cockpit,and was about to take a knee when the co-pilot took over.

"I'll handle this, Captain." The co-pilot said. The captain obligingly stepped back. The blond man took a knee, opened a small panel, and reached in with both hands. He began to slowly and carefully disconnect the wires to it and after three minutes of careful work pulled his hands out with the device firmly in hand.

"Thank you." The captain thanked his co-pilot. The man nodded and stood up, presenting the device to the captain, who then gave it to Diana. Diana took off her backpack and opened it up, then put the black box inside and zipped it up.

"Now all we have to do is wait two hours for the rescue chopper to get here." Diana said to the men. She had completed the objective of retrieving the black box. Now it was just a matter of waiting until rescue arrived.

"I'm in the sky above the crash site, Diana. I'm not seeing anything out of the ordinary. As far as I know we're the only people here." Ami reported to Diana.

"Very well then. Let me know if you see anything out of the ordinary." Diana requested.

"Will do." Ami said before going silent. Diana then walked to the hallway and looked out of one of the broken windows at the desert. Everything was clear as far as she could see. With Ami in the air she was sure that any threats would be picked up long before they could get within striking range of the plane.

[Post Word Count: 1,166]
[Total Word Count: 10,420/11,000]

-Forgotten Deserts, three hours later-

Diana had been walking a circular patrol route around the crashed cargo plane for what seemed like the hundredth time while waiting on the rescue chopper to get here. It had actually been around the sixtieth or seventieth, but the way time seemed to slow down in the featureless desert made her think otherwise. It had been roughly three hours since the huntress had last contacted Mister Burke and he had claimed that the ETA for the chopper was two hours. According to the captain, it had been three hours since the last contact with Mister Burke. Diana and the crew were hoping that disaster had not befallen the rescue chopper like it had them, but Mister Burke had been silent ever since his last transmission... without word from the man himself everyone had to hope that no news was good news.

The sun was threatening to set when Diana started to make her seventy-first loop around the wreck when she heard Mister Burke speak to her. After hearing the silence of the desert, the relentless crunching of sand under boots, and the occasional howl of the wind for hours on end the sound of his voice was unusually loud. It was so loud that he might as well have shouted into her right ear.

"Hello? Miss Winchester, can you hear me?" Mister Burke asked. Diana stopped where she was and paid attention to what he was saying.

"Yes, Mister Burke. I can hear you." Diana replied.

"Splendid. The rescue chopper is roughly ten minutes from your position. It took longer than I had anticipated for them to get there, but they should be there shortly." He gave her some long-awaited good news. Diana was so glad to hear that that she almost smiled.

"Go tell the captain to get everyone ready for transport as quickly as they can." Mister Burke ordered her.

"Right away." Diana said to him before abandoning the seventy-first circuit before it could begin and entering the cargo plane to tell the captain the good news.

-Inside the cargo plane-

Diana entered the plane and immediately turned left, walking to the cockpit and finding the captain and co-pilot standing inside drinking from plastic bottles of water. Diana faced the captain and addressed him.

"Captain, I have received word from Mister Burke that the rescue chopper is roughly ten minutes away. He would like for everyone to be ready for transport as soon as possible." Diana told the captain the good news. He smiled and clapped his hands together.

"I've been waiting to hear that all day! Me and Gary will go get everyone ready for transport. It might take a bit because we have two crewmen with broken legs, but we'll have them ready on time." He assured Diana. Diana stepped to the right of the doorway and let the captain and co-pilot pass, then left the cockpit and followed behind them. She would help in any way she could to get the crew ready for transport.

-Fifteen minutes later, outside the cargo plane-

True to their word, the captain and co-pilot had gotten everyone out of the cargo plane and ready to be picked up by the rescue chopper. It had taken a little longer than ten minutes, which was just as well because the olive green chopper arrived over the horizon a little later than Mister Burke had predicted. The captain pointed it out just as Ami called in.

"Uh, Diana? Is that olive green helicopter supposed to be here?" Ami asked Diana.

"Hold on one moment, please." Diana requested of Ami. She then immediately spoke to Mister Burke.

"Mister Burke, is the rescue chopper you sent colored olive green?" Diana asked him as the chopper continued to approach. The sound of its rotors threatened to drown out the conversation and Diana had to walk away from it to hear Mister Burke.

"Yes Miss Winchester, the chopper is olive green." She heard him answer in the affirmative, but just barely. The chopper was beginning to land about fifty meters from the crash site, so if it was hostile it would have been far too late to do anything about it. Thankfully it turned out to be friendly.

"Thank you, Mister Burke." Diana thanked him before turning to answer Ami.

"Ami, if you can hear me, the rescue chopper IS olive green. Do not fire on it!" Diana informed Ami before ordering her to stand down in case she had already targeted the helicopter with her weapon.

"OK, no problem. I see you and I'm circling around to land!" Ami confirmed that she was standing down now that she had been told the chopper was not hostile. Diana watched Ami loop around four meters above, then do a wide loop to lose speed, and descend until she finally landed about a meter to Diana's right, kicking up a cloud of dust as she did so.

"Whew, I'm glad that's over! I can't wait to get out of this desert!" Ami said to Diana, who nodded in response. The captain waved towards them, urging them to hurry up and board the transport. The huntress began to jog towards the chopper and Ami followed close behind. Soon she would be back in Shirotsume to hear whether Mister Burke had another plane crew she needed to rescue or if this rescue was the last one... for now.

-Shirotsume, four hours later-

It was nightfall when Diana arrived back in Shirotsume. Diana had taken the chopper back while Ami flew beside them in the off chance that someone hostile to Mister Burke's company was sending trouble his way, but Diana did not see any other helicopters the entire trip. The crew all made it to safety and were all at Shirotsume General Hospital for medical evaluations and medical treatment. The pair were on their way to Mister Burke's house to report their success and give him the black box from the crash in the Forgotten Deserts.

"I'm glad that's over!" Ami said to Diana.

"As am I." Diana replied. She was tired from running around and rescuing people from zombies and the desert. Maybe she would have a chance to spend the night in Mister Burke's guest room before having to make the trip back home.

"I wonder if Mister Burke's still awake?" Ami asked Diana.

"I believe that he is. His company losing two planes in the same day is bound to give him a headache." Diana surmised. Ami looked at Diana like she wanted to say something but kept quiet and faced forward. Diana and Ami continued to walk to Mister Burke's house to complete their mission and see if there was any more work that needed to be done before they could finally call it a day.

[Post Word Count: 1,136]
[Total Word Count: 11,556/11,000]