"What, do you know anything about him?" The captain asked.

"Only that he's a jerk," Babina replied cooly. Interjecting before Jack could say anything else, she was the more socially adept of the two after all.

"I guess that makes sense if you have someone willing to throw themselves out the window to kill you," the captain said. He eyed both of them suspiciously but stopped after he noticed Jack's injuries. He had been one of the first responders at the shooting that had happened a couple of days ago.

So he remembered the people who had been wounded during the attack, Jack being one of them. While the man was still slightly suspicious, he doubted they would be able to kill Nate Vis.

"So, what exactly happened here?" Babina asked.

"Can't say much, we're still in the process of investigating."

"But I can!" Grandma Hailey shouted, waving her iron fist in the air.

"I'd listen, see seem's to be telling some version of the truth, but take it with a grain of salt. I think you know why," Babina nodded at the captain's words. The old woman was getting up there for her age, so her mental abilities were not the best. Meaning that the event was likely foggy at best.

Also, few people would willingly listen to an old woman lugging around an iron fist.

"Why are you letting her tell the story? Shouldn't you take her in for questioning?" Jack asked.

"Well, we would. But you want her to tell you what happened, right? Plus she already left half this street in on what happened. So why not one more person? You're gonna hear about in a day or two now anyway."

Babina sighed and nodded, before turning towards grandma Hailey. "So, what happened?" Babina asked.

"Well, a random person assaulted my neighbor, they fought a truly epic battle. Then I threw my fist at them and sent them both flying out the window onto something. Which happened to smash into the docks."

Babina stared at Hailey for a full minute. "That's it?! Anything else you might want to add?" She asked.

"No, pretty straight forward," Hailey replied.

Babina turned towards the officer, who shrugged. "Her details of the event have been growing fuzzier and fuzzier by the minute. At this point, it would be a waste of time and resources to interview her for anything else."

The captain sighed as he looked at grandma Hailey, this was the only lead they had other from the dockyard crash. And it looked like it would take some time before they could recover the carriage.

Stolen story; please report.

Babina grabbed Jack's arm and pulled him with her to their hideout.

As they quickly made their way to the Fine and Dandy. Jack asked, "What are we doing?"

Babina responded. "We're going to go look at the tracker, it should be able to tell us where Nate is, and more importantly. His fate."

----------------------------------------

Nate woke up with a guttural cough. Before he sputtered, water flew into his nose, mouth, and ears like a torrent. He splashed his arm's around in order to balance himself and keep him from drowning.

His hands went 'splish, splash'. As he tried to swim, he couldn't see anything, only feel the coldness of the water around him.

He tried to move, but the water threw him around this way and that. He also felt something nagging him in the leg. He felt his skin widening and stretching as he tried to escape his watery death.

With a tug, he felt his pants leg rip. Tearing itself apart as Nate tried to swim to the surface. But he felt a biting pain sear through his legs.

Whatever had snagged him in the legs had punctured his leg!

Nate continued to put his arms into swimming to the surface. His arms peddling to the metal as he tried to escape whatever had grabbed him.

'Rip'.

Nate felt a scream of pain come from his leg, as well as something flowing from the wound he had just made. Blood spilled out of his leg like a tidal wave. Painting the water around it a dull red.

Nate continued to swim towards the surface, not even knowing if he going towards the surface, or deeper down. He couldn't open his eyes.

As Nate continued to swim, he felt his skin tear more and more. till finally with a decisive tug. His leg was freed from whatever had caught him.

But blood poured from his leg like a fountain. The crimson liquid coloring the water around him scarlet.

Nate felt his legs growing weak. he pumped himself harder, to escape from the water. But his arms had grown tired, felt weak, and left useless due to the amount of energy he had used.

As Nate's body ground to a halt, Nate felt his consciousness leave him slowly. Wrapping him in a cold, wet, darkness.

But a burst of power came from within. His organs delivering a swell of power from within.

Oxygen flooded his body with a blast of power. Allowing Nate to escape from unconsciousness and death.

Nate swam as hard as he could, breaking through the water as fast as he could. His muscles already felt weak even with his new burst of energy. Nate kicked his injured legs and pushed with his tired arms towards the surface.

Just as his limbs started to fail yet again, his head broke through the surface.

His nose breathed fresh air, after what felt like an eternity underwater. He finally breathed clean fresh air, Nate coughed and sputtered, throwing up all the water that had found its way into his lungs.

Nate opened his eyes, stinging from the water. He observed the distant lights of the city almost several miles away and the calm cool villages around it.

A night sky shat brilliantly overhead, Nate observed the Orion constellation. The figure of the hunter giant overhead, pointing a celestial arrow to the north.

This was the final sight Nate saw before he drifted into unconsciousness.

We have engineered this new breed of Vat-Born, hereby classified as the subject group O-513, to be able to hold their breath for an extremely long time. Able to survive underwater without mechanical assistance for around twenty to thirty minutes. But with the assistance of the numerous devices, my team have created. These Vat-Born should be able to hold their breaths for hours on end. Without needing to breach the surface at all. We should have around three hundred by the end of the year. The V-Code apart of the Vat-Born is complicated, so we won't be able to mass-produce them yet.

-Experiment Log #33, Operation Rhine River Rising. Three Years before the Signing of the Treaty of Paris.