A/N- God, I'm so fuckijn sorry guys I swear I didn't mean to take this long

"So… You're saying that Cinder wasn't just not mad about the heist, she gave you a new job?" Roman was incredulous. "I gotta hand to you, you guys certainly know how to keep things interesting. If I were you she'd have roasted me to a crisp for something like that." Dallas chuckled at the offhand compliment.

"Yeah, well..." He pulled out the set of keys Cinder had gifted him, "She gave us a house too." Roman choked on his coffee.

"I… I'm not going to lie, that's just impressive. I don't think that woman cares about her own family that much, let alone a bunch of strangers," He stood up, moving to inspect the keys for himself, "So, is she just pawning off some old condemned on you, or what?"

"No idea, haven't gone to check it out yet. Knowing her type, it's probably bugged though," Roman nodded.

"Of course. I don't doubt she's planning out how to dispose of you the second you stop being useful. She'll toss us all out the second she doesn't need us." He stood up, meandering over to the nearby couch that had been repurposed as Houston's bed, "I'd say don't even bother checking it out, but…" He gestured to the living room. Indeed, Roman's safehouse had become a bit cramped since the four had moved in. Between Houston commandeering the couch as his bed, and the morning rush for everyone to get a chance at the bathroom, it was becoming very clear that tensions were growing thin. It was probably for the best that the crew found somewhere else to sleep soon, if nothing else.

"Well, we can't very well have Cinder getting wind of our… side work," Roman finally muttered, deep in thought, "We got lucky this time, but I doubt she'll be quite so lenient with our hard earned Lien if she catches wind of our next heist. Though, if you never use the place, she'll know something's up." Roman turned to Dallas. "What do you think?"

"What do I think?" Dallas scoffed, pocketing the keys, "I think we should see what kinda place it is before we make any decisions."

"An excellent idea, if I do say so myself," Roman replied, pulling his own keys out of a pocket, "Shall we?"

"So… This is it, huh? Real nice present Cinder gave you guys." Roman had a wry smile. The new safehouse Cinder had provided had turned out to be a dilapidated old warehouse, covered with graffiti, its windows boarded or barred over. Dallas hummed.

"Maybe. Let's see what the inside looks first."

Roman chuckled.

"It's what's on the inside that counts, am I right? Alright then, let's go give it a little look-see."

After finally getting past the front door (with some heavy duty locks, he noted), Dallas had to admit that it was what was on the inside that counts.

The "front door" of sorts opened into a large and well decorated common room, complete with what looked like the latest in home entertainment systems. The room opened into the kitchen, which was equally decked out with fancy gadgets. Roman whistled appreciatively.

"Forget what I said about surveillance. Take the house, and invite me over while you're at it." Dallas groaned, but began inspecting the room anyway. "Looking for bugs? No matter how many you find, there'll probably be more. The easy to find ones are just to throw you off." Roman ambled over to the fridge, grabbing a soda and popping the top.

"Believe me, I know just how easy it is to hide bugs…" Dallas muttered. He couldn't help but remember the job at the senator's apartment the crew had hit a couple years back. With cameras that could get small enough to be hidden in a painting, just about every object in the house bigger than a matchbox was suspect. It wouldn't hurt to give the building a cursory once-over anyway. "This room seems clean enough… let's see the rest." He said, moving down the hall with Torchwick following behind. Soon, the two came to a handful of rooms.

"Well damn, I'm starting to think that Cinder's got a crush on you or something," Roman gawked, "That's a Huntsman grade workshop right there. You barely ever see anything this nice outside the academies." Dallas had to admit, it was a nice place. The shop was a massive room, filled to the brim with all sorts of tools for the maintenance of weapons. It even had its own shooting range, soundproofed of course.

Chains and Wolf were going to have a fucking field day with all this gear.

Moving on, Dallas found a staircase leading to a second level. To one side was a wide open room, furnished with only a handful of chairs and tables. It would've made for a good common room, if the crew had any real use for one. As it was, it would make a great room for planning out future heists.

"...Just needs a few upgrades…" Dallas muttered.

"You said something?" Torchwick looked over from his own inspection of the room, shooting Dallas an inquisitive look.

"Yeah, I was thinking this would be a good room for planning out jobs in the future. It's missing a few things though," Dallas moved over to one wall, already planning out the new layout of the room, "Shouldn't be too hard to get, though."

"What, not good enough for you?" Roman mocked, "Doesn't have the requisite 'wine and caviar bar' that you just can't live without?"

"Alright, alright," Dallas groaned, "I get it. I think we've seen enough here. Let's get the rest of the crew and bring 'em over. This is their home now, too." He turned back towards the stairs, Roman following behind.

"So it's a keeper then?"

"It had better be," He grumbled to himself, "because I'm not letting you stay in my safehouse anymore if you've got this place..."

"So, we've got this device… thing…" Hoxton held up the device for the crew to see before setting it on the table. A bit smaller than a loot bag, the little device had been a pain in the crew's ass for quite a while now. There was just one problem…

"How do we use it to bring the guys back?"

"If you'd just let me speak…" Bain's voice came over the phone, "I was about to tell you."

"Well? Get it on with, then." Hoxton shot back.

"That's what… Nevermind," Bain sighed, "Anyway, now that we have the device, we have the ability to bring the crew back-"

"Then let's do it!" Hoxton interrupted, picking the device again and fiddling with the buttons, "There's only a couple buttons, it can't be that hard to figure out, right?"

"Stop that!" Bain shouted, "We don't know how that thing works or how to use it! We don't want the rest of the team to end up missing too!"

Slowly, glaring at the receiver that acted as a stand-in for Bain, Hoxton put the device back on the table.

"Right... " Bain breathed, "So, we have the device, but we don't know how to use it. The easiest way to fix this problem would be to find someone who does know and ask him. Naturally, even if we knew the guy, I doubt he's going to just hand over the owner's manual, so we have to do things the hard way. Once we find the guy, we're going to have to bring him back here, and force him to do whatever he has to do to bring the guys back." Bain paused, letting the plan sink in. "At least, that's the rough plan; We can figure out the rest as we go. Dismissed." With that, the assembled crew began to disperse, each individual returning to their own hobbies or tasks, with the exception of Hoxton.

"Hey, Bain, how are the guys doin'?

Bain chuckled,

"You really do care about them don't you?"

Hoxton sputtered,

"What? No! I mean- Look," He sighed, "I… I owe 'em this much. They broke me outta prison, I'm gonna get them back from wherever the hell they are, it's what they'd do for me. Even if one of 'em did try to replace me." He muttered.

"Well, you don't need to worry, the guys are doing just fine. Got themselves a new safehouse and everything." Hoxton looked up, surprised.

"Really? Next you'll be tellin' me they went and replaced me again, too…" He chuckled at his own joke, trailing off as he noticed that Bain hadn't joined him. "Bain…?"

"Well…"

"Bain don't you fuckin' tell me..."

"Not exactly…"

"Oh god fucking dammit, Bain what did they do?"

"They've got a new member; girl who goes by 'Neo'." Bain said, a little quickly. Almost instantly, the tension began fading from Hoxton's face.

"Oh." He finally said, "I guess that's alright, then. Just as long as they aren't tryin' to replace me with another new 'Hoxton' again…"

"Oh, don't worry. You're still the one true Hox in our hearts," Bain joked.

"You're goddamn right I am. And don't let nobody forget it."

The move into the new safehouse had gone quickly and quietly, thanks to the crew's general lack of possessions at the moment. With their few personal effects officially moved into their new home, the crew had quickly set about making the place more "homey". Chains and Wolf were already occupying themselves down in the workshop, and Houston was out on a run to the store. Even with all the gadgets that had come with the safehouse, the fridge had been completely barren. Dallas, naturally, had already set to work planning the next heist.

Cinder wanted the crew to step up their heists, it seemed, and the only way to make the kind of quota she had set was to move up from knocking off local dust stores to hitting the suppliers directly. While Dallas was never one to ignore a shot at a bigger payday, he was wary of the risks. These shipments would certainly have better security than a simple alarm system. Private guards at the least, but based on what he had been able to find, probably much more.

The "SDC", as it was called, seemed to have a near monopoly on the Dust trade. Naturally, that meant that they had the resources to defend their property, and if the news was anything to go by, they had the resolve to use it, too. If the crew were going after any of these targets, things would almost certainly end up going very loud.

"Torchwick, what can you tell me about the SDC's security forces?" Dallas asked, turning to the redheaded thief.

"The SDC, huh?" Roman stroked his chin in thought, "Well, I can tell you that they're much worse than anything the police can toss at us. A lot of them are retired Atlesian military, even a few huntsmen dropouts. Aura's standard issue for all employees, but it's not the same level of protection as a hunter."

Hopefully that would work in their favor. In the few times the crew had gone up against a hunter, they had been extremely lucky; one turned out to be just a trainee, and the other had been dealt with by their resident pyrokinetic boss. Dallas was not eager to test their luck against one by themselves.

"What about armor, weapons, that kind of thing?" He finally asked.

"Schnee mostly equips their security teams with outdated and surplus gear from Atlas. They've got military grade weaponry, but their body armor's a joke," Torchwick proclaimed, "I mean, who needs bulletproof vests when you've got aura, am I right?" He chuckled at his own joke. "Anyway, it might protect them from a few bullets, but they're more geared towards killing Grimm than people. What you really need to look out for is their security droids."

"Droids?" Dallas asked, confused.

"Yeah. Part of the Atlesian surplus that the SDC uses is a bunch of old Knight-130s. Probably outnumber the human guards five-to-one."

"How strong are they?"

"Not very," Roman chuckled, "They're better for deterrence than actually fighting for the most part. They've all got the standard kit, automatics guns and blades for hands. They aren't very strong though. Their big advantage is that they've got numbers on anyone they fight; not all that different from Grimm, really."

"Right. Okay. We can handle that." Dallas sighed. He looked back at the schedule Cinder had given the team. The first shipment they could hit was a train heading out from Vale in a few weeks. Apparently, it would be making stops along the way to Vacuo, unloading supplies to be distributed to smaller towns and villages. The Dust among those supplies was their target. The whole setup reminded him of the heists the crew had pulled on those military transports a few months back.

Actually, that gave him an idea…

"Get the rest of the crew over here," Dallas ordered, "I've got a plan."

"Alright, so, on Cinder's orders, we're going to start hitting bigger targets than what we have been. That means more money for us when all's said and done though, so listen up." Dallas looked around at the collected group of hardened criminals. And also Roman. "Our first target's a transport train heading out of town in a few weeks; it's loaded with supplies, including the Dust we're after. We'll be hitting like when we snatched that military prototype a few months back. We find a good spot to stop the train, and while they're distracted, we jump on." Dallas gestured to a board with several images of similar trains tacked to it, annotated with possible entrances, vantage points and other tactical information. The trailers were a mix of covered and flatbeds carrying multi-colored shipping containers.

"How're we gonna get the Dust out?" Houston asked.

"According to Torchwick, the dust should be stored in crates on the train. What we'll do is load 'em into the shipping containers on the flatbeds, and then airlift the whole thing out. We can toss or sell on whatever's already in the containers for extra money."

"We know how we're getting out, but how're we going in?" Chains interjected.

"The plan is to stop the train far enough away from any help that we can be gone before backup can arrive, so we're going in loud. Take care of the crew before they can raise the alarm and get out quickly."

The rest of the crew nodded in agreement, the general idea of the plan already committed to memory.

"Alright," Dallas finally sighed, "You all know your jobs, so get to it. I don't know if we'll need 'em, but make sure the drills are ready to go, Wolf."

The Swede grunted in confirmation, already halfway to his workbench.

"Torchwick, if we want to do this fast, we'll need some guys to pick up the containers and take possession of them after we lift them out. Think you can handle that?"

Roman nodded, pulling out his scroll.

"I'm sure I can convince Cinder to spare a few White Fang Bullheads and pilots. They can stash the containers and take care of… whatever she wants all this Dust for."

"Good. Alright, I think that's it." Dallas stood up, rubbing his neck. "Now, I need a drink…"

"Alright boys and girls, I've got good news and less good news. You may recall a 'Doctor Klein' as the man behind the machine behind our recent, eh… issues." Bain paused, letting the information sink in. "Well, I've finally found him. Problem is, he seems to have caught onto our plan. He's convinced that we're coming after him, and gotten the FBI to stick him in Witness Protection, much like our dear old friend Hector. They've done a lot of the same work to protect him; a safehouse guarded twenty-four seven, and a panic room. Nothing we haven't dealt with before. Only difference is that we need this guy alive and compliant. I can't stress this enough guys; He's the only one who knows how the device works. If we lose this guy, then we lose our only way to get the guys home besides trial and error, and I'd rather not accidentally send someone to deep space."

"Alright then," Hoxton interrupted, "We know this guy's gonna come kicking and screaming, so we may as well not even bother with all that sneakin' around bullshit. That means goin' in guns blazing in full armor. I want Rust, Dragan, and Bonnie with me on this one."

"Hox's got a point," Bain mused, "This guy's going to be so twitchy that he's probably already hit the panic button on accident a couple of times. You guys would definitely be best off with the heaviest armor you can carry. I'll send you in with the Thermic Lance and keep Bile on standby with the helicopter. Just tie him up and toss him on. We need him one piece, but I doubt anyone'll cry if he gets a few bumps here and there. As long as he can still help us, I don't really care. Chances are he's going to end up looking like the Taxman once we're through with him, anyway."

The room went silent as the crew remembered the the condition the Taxman had been left in a few months ago.

"That settles it, then." Hoxton finally said. "We've got a plan; won't be that hard to kidnap one fuckin' scientist, yeah?"

"We can hope, Hox," Bain muttered quietly, "But you know what they say about the best laid plans…"

Holy shit, it's been what? Two months and counting? I am really fucking sorry about this guys, seriously. And I finally come back with this... dumpster fire of a half chapter.

You're likely thinking something along the lines of "Nemo, you are a terrible person, and will never achieve your dreams of living as a hermit alone in the woods, completely independent of any and all outside influences and finally free of the chronic aneurysm that is american politics."

And you would be partially correct. I am indeed a terrible person. However, I am also the sort of person who will stick to my principles no matter what.

To that end, I assure once and for all that I will NOT abandon this story. If I do, it simply opens up the door for me to do it again in the future, and then I'll hate myself even more. So even if my annual shot of enthusiasm for PAYDAY that swings around every fall has worn off a bit, I'm still working on this fic. At the very least, if I really can't keep up with it, I'll post a rough outline of what I had planned for the rest. But that's worst case scenario.

For those of you more concerned with why this took so long, the answer to that is a very long list of things. Too long to include here, but some highlights include:

-Computer Repairs

-Testing/School

-Minor Medical issues (Don't worry, it's dealt with. Probably.)

-Writer's Block

And most importantly

-I'm just a piece of shit who won't fucking sit down and write sometimes even though I should and I have literally nothing better to do.

That said, I've got most of these issues pretty well sorted now, so I can hopefully start pumping out a chapter a week or so for the rest of the summer.

I'm two for two on that, so far. (Check out my other story, Synthetic Souls, btw)

Anyway, I'm going to also say that this chapter was a particular bitch to write because of my own deficiencies in planning ahead. I know where I want to end up a few chapters from now, but not entirely how to get there. Or at least I didn't. Now I have the next two action packed chapters thought up and ready to go, and from there we start to hook back up to the main plot a bit. (Hint hint)

I won't guarantee that this won't happen again, but it shouldn't happen any time soon, at least.

Also, I've gone ahead with switching off on two stories over the summer at least. I might Hiatus one once school starts up, but that's a few months away. Who knows, I may even have this one finished by then. At the rate this is going, it's not looking to exceed around 20-25 chapters. But hey, that just means no hiatuses.

Anyway, tl;dr I'm back, I'm a piece of shit, and I'm here to stay. For now.