Icarus Azure, codename Daedalus, checked the flight plans on his scroll. The timing was perfect; Kathryn Schnee's personal Bullhead was scheduled to be inbound in about fifteen minutes. Sienna Khan had been explicit with the motive for the assassination. The death of the current CEO of the Schnee Dust Company would send a clear message to the upper echelons of society that Faunus rights would be protected at all costs by the White Fang. The utterly demeaning practices that SDC Dust mines used to manage their Faunus employees, such as significant pay gaps, lesser job security, and lower safety standards for their designated workplaces, would not stand. Well, Sienna thought so, at least. What was more likely, Icarus felt, was that the SDC's policy makers would use the assassination as an excuse to crack down even further upon its Faunus employees.
Still, Sienna's decision was final, and he wasn't anywhere close to disobeying direct orders. Especially with his petulant, loyal to a fault nineteen year old superior officer next to him.
Icarus sighed. Adam Taurus was annoying at best, but he was certainly skilled enough to join him in this mission. Besides, he was pretty sure that Adam would have ended up crying in his sleep if he hadn't been chosen as Icarus's spotter and point man. The man could be such a child sometimes.
He grimaced, both from the cold of the Mistrali mountain range and the shiver that ran down his spine at what he was supposed to do. He was only fifteen, but Adam had went ahead and recommended him for the assignment because he was the only one with the sufficient skills and the apparent devotion to even attempt it. Lying prone on a mountainous cliff face, with temperatures being well below freezing, wasn't fun at all. If it was any consolation, Adam was also stuck on this god forgotten mountain with him.
"Check the flight plans again, Adam. And tell me the wind direction, wind speed and distance to target while you're at it." He whispered.
Adam peered into the rangefinder.
"Wind speed and direction is twenty metres per second, to the north-east. Estimated distance to target is from seven hundred and eighty metres to eight hundred and ten metres."
"Damn it. A thirty metre margin of error is thirty metres too much."
"Well, the flight plans we got are a general flight path. It's precise, but not that precise."
He wasn't even supposed to be doing this. He was from the Vale branch, and here he was in the Mistral Alps. To hell with this, he thought. Why was he doing this?
Because the White Fang was the only family he knew. Taken off the streets outside his school at nine years old, and dumped at an abandoned warehouse to be the plaything of some sadistic fucks whom thought that his wings, his dove wings of the whitest feathers, somehow meant that he was below them.
They tortured him as they pleased, for an entire month. A week in, they sawed off his wings, the part of himself he loved the most. He probably broke then, because he couldn't remember anything after that. The other three were just a blur of pain and humiliation to him.
And then the White Fang rolled around, caught the fuckers red handed, and quite literally tore them to pieces. He could swear that one of his captors sprayed what looked like chrome spray paint into his mouth and screamed "witness me!" His subsequent suicidal charge at a group of White Fang rank-and-file troops equipped with rifles, while he had nothing but a wrench in his hand, was the second most stupid thing he'd ever seen in his life.
After that, he had joined up, stuck with them as they increasingly became more militaristic, but no more. This was to be his last mission.
Sienna could kiss his pale feather-plucked ass goodbye, because he was going to have no part in whatever atrocities the White Fang were going to commit under their new leadership.
The first place winner of the dumbest things he had seen was this bullshit plan. Shoot down the Bullhead with an anti-materiel rifle. Sounds easy, right? Dead wrong.
If he screwed up somehow, best case scenario was that he'd miss the target entirely, and Sienna would personally claw his and Adam's faces off. In a worst case scenario, he would hit the engine of the Bullhead, but then the dying aircraft would somehow slam into their makeshift sniper nest and the two would become an unpleasant stain on the mountain. There were all sorts of ways this could go wrong, but he knew that any one of them would mean the end of him and Adam.
And then there was that thirty metre margin of error. If this was any other mission, he would have aborted it, deemed the attempt a preemptive failure.
But the flight plans were a once in a lifetime chance to 'decapitate the monster,' as Adam had called it. However, in his opinion Adam was a violent radical who couldn't even get his head out of a paper bag if it meant asking a human for help.
He wrapped his semblance around himself and a probably ungrateful Adam. Any sound he wished would be nullified in a radius around him, but external sound could still enter. In short, any sensors that the Bullhead could possess to detect sound could not detect him, while he and Adam could still hear the Bullhead and each other.
The latter was unfortunate, but a necessary sacrifice to ensure mission success.
He hurriedly loaded his weapon, working the bolt before pulling a slider that caused the barrel's diameter to spiral outwards, increasing the bore of the gun. Labyrinth truly personified the sniper's motto 'one shot, one kill." A bolt-action .50 caliber anti-materiel rifle that had a magazine capacity of five armour-piercing incendiary rounds. Perfect for taking out machinery or blowing someone's head off. But the real masterstroke was that the rifle could also accept 20mm cannon rounds inserted into the breech. Granted, it could only hold one at at time, but the additional firepower and armour piercing capability was worth it. And this time, he needed it.
The 20mm shell slid inside and fit snugly into his gun's barrel, and with almost no time to spare.
He could hear the faint, faraway drone of a Bullhead's engines.
It was time.
/-/
Kathryn Schnee was annoyed, to put it nicely. Sure, there was proof that the White Fang wanted her head, but Jacques didn't have to be so paranoid, especially for this.
Besides, in her opinion taking any measures to guard against them actually served to legitimise the White Fang as a credible threat.
Her husband had requisitioned an armoured Bullhead from General Ironwood for her flight to Haven Academy. The Vytal Festival was to be held there this year, and she was going there to sign the necessary paperwork for Haven's impressive purchase of Dust for the event. They were surely pulling out all the stops to make this year's Festival memorable, weren't they? Oh well, it's a win for both parties. Mistral and Haven Academy get the publicity they need, while the Schnee Dust Company gets a few million lien for its troubles.
No, what was really annoying her was the fact that they had to go through this goddamn mountain pass. The winds were already making the Bullhead sway, and the extra weight from the armour plating was just making it worse.
She reached forward from her seat, and grabbed a sick bag. Unknown to many, the Schnee matriarch hated travelling by air, as she got airsick very easily. Normally she didn't travel by air, but her husband had seen it fit that she was to fly to the Academy in a fittingly dynamic entrance.
For once she had conceded to his train of thought, but now she was seriously regretting it.
The intimidatingly jagged rocks on both sides of the pass spelled death if her Bullhead slammed into them, so she instructed her pilot to stick to the middle of the path.
Her pilot was top-of-the-line, as was expected, but even he was having trouble with this crosswind.
She gripped the sick bag tighter. Deep down inside, she somehow knew that this one was going to be a rough ride.
/-:
The Bullhead was so close he could nearly feel the heat from its engines, but he couldn't take the shot. Not yet. He moved his rifle to point down from the cliff edge.
The target was flying through the ravine, travelling from their left to their right.
"Adam, distance to target now!" He shouted.
"Seven hundred and ninety metres!"
So close, but so far as well. At that distance, the Bullhead needed to be a bit closer to confirm a hit, but if he waited too long, he risked the thing just flashing by them.
He waited.
Adam raised his voice, now visibly agitated. "What are you waiting for? Take the shot!"
"Shut up except when I ask for data." He growled.
Adam closed his mouth, but he was still visibly grinding his teeth. He, unlike Icarus, hated the Schnees and the SDC with a vengeance, reasons unknown.
Icarus sighed in exasperation. Adam wasn't exactly the most stable of a mission partner, which was a major problem, but he was the most skilled.
A moral quandary if he ever saw one. Adam was now grumbling under his breath of how he was a traitor to the White Fang cause for leaving, and that a proper White Fang member would not even hesitate to take the decisive shot.
Icarus felt the sudden temptation to kick him off the damn cliff right there and then.
If the bastard thought that he could do this himself, he could jolly well do so.
Maybe as he fell he could hopefully slam into the target, and by sheer force of will he could accelerate himself to the point that the Bullhead would explode in mid air.
Wishful thinking, he reasoned. He sighed again, this time to vent the mounting frustration in his gut. He had to control himself, however satisfying the prospect of sending his superior officer flying off the conveniently placed precipice was.
This was his last mission, after all.
Just a few more seconds, until the end.
The Bullhead's right engine was just close enough for an almost guaranteed hit.
There. The perfect time to act.
He took the shot.
When he pulled the trigger, he did not hear the boom or feel the kick - one never does when a shot goes home - but the effect was clear.
The Bullhead's engine erupted into a blazing inferno, and it began to spiral downwards into the abyss.
"Target down." Icarus said.
"Make sure that the target is dead." Adam replied. "Silver One's ETA is in ten minutes, so make it quick before he arrives for his bombing run."
"Yes sir." Icarus said, stowing the bipod in which his weapon had rested. "Of course."
/-/
Kathryn Schnee startled to the sound of something exploding.
For a moment she thought that the White Fang had launched a surface-to-air missile at her Bullhead and missed, or that they had tried to shoot her down with an anti-aircraft gun. Either way, they certainly were more daring in Mistral than they were in Atlas. The Mistrali leadership certainly had a lot to answer for. But then her butler brought her back to reality. A very fiery one, but still.
"My Lady, the engine is on fire!" Calvin, her butler, helpfully pointed out.
Yes, indeed, the starboard engine of her Bullhead was on fire. More importantly, it had cut out.
Damn it, I should have just taken the bloody train, she thought.
Even higher up the priority list was what her pilot was shouting.
"What the fuck just happened? I can't keep our course straight with one engine!"
Indeed he couldn't, as the Bullhead was now visibly veering towards the sheer walls of the crevice.
From bad to worse, she grimly noted. From the frying pan to the fires of Hell.
"Well my Lady, if I may be blunt with you, I think that we are most probably dead. Now would be a very good time to say your farewells." Calvin morosely muttered. If indeed they would perish here, his brother Klein would be devastated. Such a pity, especially since she would probably die with Calvin.
The Bullhead listed towards its starboard side. Sooner or later it would slam into the cliff side, and take its passengers to hell along with it.
Kathryn Schnee began to weep.
She would never see Winter again. Her duties in the Atlesian military had all but ensured that she was too busy for even a shirt home visit, but Kathryn had always hoped that she would see her eldest daughter even one more time before she passed on. Now that hope was gone.
She would never see Weiss again. She wanted so much to become a Huntress, even despite when Jacques had tried to dissuade her with the raw statistics of the survival rates of Huntsmen. She so wanted to watch her daughter succeed, but now it looked like that was all lost.
She would never see Whitley again. By far the most forward-thinking and controlled of her three children, despite the fact that he was the youngest, Kathryn honestly felt that he would be the best one to take over the SDC. She wanted to live to see that so badly, but as they say, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
She accepted her fate.
Just before the doomed aircraft made contact, Kathryn Schnee whispered what she thought would be her last words on Remnant.
"Farewell, Jacques. Take care of the kids when I'm gone."
She heard the scream of buckling metal, and then nothing.
/-/
Icarus watched the Bullhead slam into the side of the crevice, before skidding off and plummeting into the abyss.
Before long he heard the explosion as the Bullhead finally crashed into the bottom of the ravine.
"Adam, notify me via comms immediately if any reinforcements show up. I'm going to check for any survivors."
The unspoken thought between them was that he was going to eliminate any and all survivors. Tragic, but necessary.
He fiddled with the HUD of his helmet, deactivating the active camouflage of his armour with a burst of shimmering light. Unlike Sienna, who thought that making an new regulation that White Fang members now had to wear their Grimm masks at all times when on duty was a good idea at all, Icarus was less of an idealist and more of a pragmatist.
His helmet, which was essentially an upgraded and modified motorcycle helmet, helped to protect his head from any combat-related trauma and to shield his face from the high wind speeds he faced when in flight. In short, it was better than any flimsy mask.
Besides, Grimm masks just made the White Fang look unapproachable as all hell. Not the best move for recruitment or for PR in general.
With a thought, he activated his jump pack. The White Fang had replaced his wings with a neurally controlled jump pack so that he could retain his ability of flight. He both appreciated the gesture and knew of its connotations.
They wanted him on their side.
He transformed Labyrinth into its glaive form, the rifle shifting into a long pole which was tipped with a fairly long, razor sharp blade that had emerged from the rifle's stock.
He then leaped off the cliff, his jump pack roaring into life as he did.
/-/
Kathryn Schnee opened her eyes. She was alive? How? Sure, she was practically covered in burns and she couldn't feel anything from her waist down but she was alive. Screwed, but alive. She chuckled, out of the sheer helplessness she felt than anything. Now all she had to do was wait for her mystery assassin to finish the job.
Even if they didn't bother, she would die either from her injuries or from thirst, whichever came first.
She glanced to her right, searching for the Bullhead's emergency radio. Her scroll was destroyed for sure, but maybe she could use the emergency radio to get help? It was a desperate hope, but what other choice did she have?
She sighed. The radio was literally smashed to bits, presumably by the impact. Well, that was her only chance gone. Now all she could do was wait for the inevitable.
Her wait was interrupted soon enough by the clanking of what were certainly combat boots on the ground, accompanied by the roar of a jump pack. She had seen prototypes made by the Atlesian military, but they were not safe enough yet to put into production. The White Fang had made a working example? She had underestimated them.
The glaive in his hands gleamed wickedly in the dim light that was not blocked by the looming mountains around them.
"I believe introductions are in order. Miss Schnee, I am codename Daedalus. You may have heard of me before."
Her mind ground to a halt. Daedalus?
His name was equivalent to that of a bogeyman among the upper echelons of society. A spectre of death, whose very name was able to make people nauseous of fear. She had known people to have died at the man's hands, killed by someone who was clearly a sniper. Every time the law enforcement would find the infamous killer's previously used vantage point, they would find nothing substantial.
Except for a pocket watch. Always the same model, made of brass and with the gears whirring behind the clock face.
And always stopped approximately at the victim's time of death.
They had nicknamed the killer after the infamous inventor of yore, the very man who was said to have built the intricate labyrinth that served as Atlas's catacombs, only populated by Grimm, madmen and the suicidally adventurous.
Apparently, he had embraced that identity.
"Daedalus." She composed herself. She couldn't show weakness, especially not now. Not in the face of death. "Would it kill you to spare someone just once?" She seethed. "At least this time you are man enough to watch up close, instead of skulking in the shadows like a coward."
"Miss Schnee, I would gladly spare you. Hell, I would even bring you to a hospital myself. But orders are orders. My superior officer has his sights on both of us even now."
Ah yes. The Minotaur. Almost as notorious, but not quite as feared. Wanton, zealous violence could never compete with Daedalus's cold brutality.
To stare down the Bull-headed one's sword at your throat, fully cognisant of one's impending doom, was not as terrifying as the prospect of having Daedalus watching you with the scope of his rifle, just waiting for the perfect moment to end your unaware life.
"The Minotaur is not to be feared. Come now, we can end this before it's too late."
Now she was trying to bargain, to plead with whatever morality the man had left.
"Miss Schnee, I am afraid that I cannot save you, however much I wish that I could." He replied.
Her fate was sealed then. She allowed her temper to flare. What did she have to lose now?
"Tell me, what did I do wrong? Tell me what I did so wrong that the White Fang had to issue a kill order on me!"
Daedalus looked taken aback, flinching backwards slightly.
"What did I do wrong?" She now sobbed. Her anger had somehow morphed into despair. "I didn't do anything to die for... I didn't do anything…" She trailed off, now weeping wordlessly.
"Nothing, Miss. You did nothing wrong." Daedalus's voice took on a sympathetic tone. "The problem is ours."
"Then what is it?" She snapped.
In response, the killer lifted his helmet's visor.
Kathryn found herself taken aback. Maybe it was the fact that she had never imagined that the White Fang would send a child soldier to kill her, or perhaps it was that she saw all the regret in the world in his eyes, but she began to sob again.
"The monsters...you're so young...why are you even here?" She sobbed, now wishing she could take back the anger she had vented on the person before her. She didn't know why. Was it some sort of renewal of her conscience, her empathy as a mother connecting with the clearly damaged boy before her? Was it the blood loss, the injuries and her newfound paralysis getting the better of her? She didn't know.
"As I said, orders are orders." The assassin sighed. "Besides, I'm done with this bullshit. Did you ever know that the White Fang wasn't always a bunch of blood-drunk terrorists?"
He started laughing sardonically, before he caught himself. "They actually used to do good, you know? Finding lost children, helping the elderly cross the street, stuff like that. Those were the days that made me stay even though it was falling apart all around me. Leadership changes, power struggles and whatnot, despite all that I still stood firm. Despite all the assassinations, the riots, all of that shit, I still hoped. I hung on because I still had hope that things would turn around eventually. Now? I've given up entirely. This is my last mission."
Kathryn could only stare in shock. Daedalus was actually on her side? But he was still going to kill her? It was all so confusing now. Why couldn't he have been a carbon copy of the Minotaur? That would have made things so much simpler.
"Hell, I'm not even the youngest one among us. We have a lieutenant, named Blake. The best part? She's two whole years younger than me!"
He now looked sad, almost despondent.
Kathryn was taken aback again. Someone even younger?
She took a deep breath, then sighed again. She knew the White Fang were reprehensible, but they had lowered themselves into using child soldiers?
"Promise me something." She smiled bitterly, tears in her eyes. "Let my death mean something other than misery. Promise me you'll try your best to save that girl. Before she becomes like you."
Daedalus looked her into the eye. He was already stepping towards her, plodding forward one foot at a time, in preparation for the end.
"I promise." He said morosely. "I won't let you die in vain."
He was now right next to her, flipping his glaive in his hand to bring the blade downwards.
"I'll try to make this as quick as possible, so stay still, alright? May the heavens be opened to you, and Godspeed." He sounded solemn.
She had been expecting the White Fang assassin to be some zealot whom would have gloated at her death.
That expectation had been subverted, into an embittered soul who was burdened with a massive amount of regret, remorse and a wish to save others from his own fate.
How heroic.
And as he brought the glaive down through her rib cage and into her heart, she only had one final thought in her head.
"I hope he succeeds, in the end."
/-/
Four years later…
Icarus jolted awake. Where was he?
Oh wait, he was on the airship to Beacon. His seat was comfortable at least, but he couldn't help but stare at shock at the person, or rather persons, in his sight.
Blake Belladonna. Not a welcome sight.
Without Daedalus to reign him in, the Minotaur, without his Labyrinth to keep him in check, had become rabid. The murders, the sabotage, had only increased in scale and frequency, making the now total war between the White Fang and the SDC even more intense. As he had predicted, Kathryn's death had only made the SDC, and Jacques Schnee - whom had been posthumously recommended by his wife to take over the company - hungry for revenge.
And then the bastard had looped in poor Blake into his bullshit. The faraway look in her eyes, like she had seen things that could never be completely forgotten. The way her gaze flitted through the room, scanning for possible threats.
He knew that look, because that was what he saw every day when he looked into a mirror.
When he left, Adam had made it clear that he wouldn't exactly be welcome anymore, so he had been forced to rely on his contacts to keep track of Blake.
Reportedly, Adam had twisted her, mutating her childish innocence into almost unflinching loyalty. Lieutenant Belladonna became another one of Adam's lackeys, even becoming his girlfriend. Adam was six entire years older than her, but he was fairly certain that their relationship hadn't reached that particular stage yet. At least, his contact was certain.
He got out of the Bullhead, careful to keep up with the crowd. Even with his hoodie on instead of his helmet and body armour, she might still be able to recognise him. Best to take the necessary precautions.
He huffed. His contacts had planted the idea that the White Fang had been corrupted by the likes of Adam and Sienna, and Blake has apparently latched onto that idea. The fact that she was here, now, proved that. Looks like they were more alike than Icarus thought.
He looked at Blake again, then to the white garbed figure that she was walking towards. Sheesh, even her mannerisms made her look like a bitch, from the way she was gesticulating and the tone with which she was positively screeching at the younger girl in front of her. A man wearing a full-face rebreather, a helmet with an armoured mask that possessed a skull-like visage and a grey greatcoat with armour plating over it was currently arguing with her, something about her waving around a vial of fire dust like a lunatic. A well deserved dressing-down, if you asked this particular assassin. So what if the smaller red-garbed girl had spilled the white garbed girl's cases of Dust, her complaints of it being "mined and purified from the Schnee quarry" be damned.
Wait. "From the Schnee quarry." What?
He looked closer at the white garbed girl's face, and recoiled in shock.
Kathryn Schnee's lifeless, accusatory eyes flashed in front of his face, if only for a moment.
He blanched, stumbling over to a bench and practically collapsing onto it.
God damn it all. Adam or Sienna never told him that Kathryn had children!
He only knew for sure that Kathryn had her husband, Jacques, but he didn't know that they had raised a family. A family he had shattered.
He had definitely heard Weiss's song 'Mirror Mirror' before, but he had assumed then that Weiss was Kathryn's blood relative, probably a niece twice removed or something...anything..not her...her daughter…
No wonder 'Mirror Mirror' tugged on his heartstrings so much. That pain in her voice...that kind of pain could only come from deep personal loss. Like the death of a loved one. He knew that sort of pain more than he liked to, mostly because he had brought that pain upon others.
Icarus brought his hands to his face, drawing down his hoodie before resting his face on them.
His face was wet with newly shed tears, he realised. He let them fall anyway.
He had failed Kathryn's final request. He had failed to save Blake Belladonna in time, before Adam managed to twist her into something unrecognisable. He had seen Blake at the White Fang base, before he had left. Back then she was so lively, naïve, and innocent. Now? The way she constantly scanned her surroundings for threats only highlighted how much she has changed, and he had failed.
And Weiss...he had killed her mother. He had gone halfway into making her an orphan, and would likely have had to complete the process had he stayed with the White Fang. Probably his next mission would have been to assassinate Jacques.
He had shattered a family, one that he had no right to violate.
And it was all his fault...volunteering to go on that last mission with Adam fucking Taurus!
He vaguely thought of ending it all, of pointing Labyrinth's barrel into his mouth and 'swallowing the bullet' as they put it. The weapon wasn't loaded, of course, but he still found himself turning the barrel of his rifle towards his own head.
He shook the thought off, shifting his rifle back into its prior position. He owed Kathryn. He couldn't die yet, not before he did his best to fix the mistakes he made.
And as the younger girl garbed in red and black chatted to a blond guy he hadn't noticed before about weapons, he got up from his bench and wiped his tears from his face with his sleeve, before starting to walk towards the gothic spires of Beacon Academy. The gas-mask wearing man was among them, talking to them jovially. Something about the adverse reactions blondes seemed to have towards him. Ultimately inconsequential, not least because his own hair was actually raven black. He smiled slightly, despite himself. A bit of optimism now couldn't hurt, after all.
He set off to right the wrongs he had created by his own hand.
