Gomez tried not to quiver under the stare Major Schnee was giving her and Dick.
She hadn't said anything about the two of them and Sergeant Frankel joining their little hike, but with that look she didn't really have to.
"Well, Weiss," Major Schnee said eventually. "Your team sets the pace."
"Alright," Weiss said, a small hint of an arched tone in her voice, "But our team leader," she looked pointedly at Major Schnee, "will run ahead. None of us can keep up with her anyway."
Gomez thought that was more than a little arrogant, but none of the Winter Contingent made an issue of it. Major Schnee did, however, scowl down at Weiss.
"Do you need a cadence?" Weiss asked the Contingent, ignoring the scowl.
"No," Lt. Lang replied. "We'll just match your pace."
"Alright," Weiss said, turning toward the open gates of the base. "Then here we go."
Gomez tried and failed to stifle a smile at the pace the girl eventually set. It was way too fast. There was no way those little girls could keep it up. Pretty soon they'd slow to a crawl and look like the idiots they were.
Eventually, she heard Weiss counting off. It was much slower than the speed they were going so it wasn't a cadence.
"One. Two. Three. Four." In a cloud of rose petals the girl name Ruby pulled up in front of Weiss, running backwards at the same fast pace as the others.
"I saw a chipmunk," she said. Then she turned and ran away again. No one reacted to this absurd declaration or her sudden disappearance.
"One. Two. Three. Four," Weiss counted off loudly. "One. Two. Three. Four."
Another cloud of rose petals. "Actually, it was a squirrel."
"One. Two. Three. Four. One. Two. Three. Four."
"Found a fox den," the girl replied. Only then did Gomez realize what the counting was. Ruby was sprinting ahead and returning on a four-second-count. She couldn't tell how, but the girl apparently didn't care what Gomez did or didn't understand.
As the path into the hills toward the rock formations started developing a serious incline, Gomez looked over at her teammate and scowled.
"Don't blame me, corporal," Dick said between breaths, "I didn't know we'd get stuck with escort duty. Besides, I can't resist a pretty girl, and those ears of hers are downright adorable."
"You resist me all the time, Dick," Gomez challenged darkly.
"Because you curse too much, Corporal," Dick replied calmly. "It seems like every other word you say is a curse word. That, or an insult."
Gomez snarled back at her teammate but even she couldn't argue with what the prick said.
Soon, though, she noticed something that distracted her pretty damn well. Her breathing was quickening as they ran up the steep hills but the twiggy girls at the front didn't slow their pace. Not even a little bit.
"The hell..." she said, looking over at Sergeant Frankel. Sarge shook her head between breaths, apparently noticing the same thing. How were a couple scrawny brats keeping this up?
On and on, almost exclusively uphill, the four girls led them along the path. The entire time the girl Weiss kept up her four-count and her rosy little friend kept up the sprinting.
Gomez was breathing heavily now, there was no doubt about that. Hell, even the Winter Contingent seemed to need a few extra breaths every now and then. But apparently that didn't matter, because none of the people in front of her seemed like they were going to slow down.
Eventually, Gomez spared a glance behind her. If she'd had the breath to spare, she'd have cussed at what she saw. They were only five or six miles from the base. They were barely half-way to the rocks. At this pace, Gomez'd be dead before they arrived.
The few nearby members of the Winter Contingent had started breathing hard, but Gomez could tell they refused to fall behind, even if it killed them. They just had that look in their eye whenever she managed a peek.
On and on and on they ran. Gomez brain felt like it was turning to mush with every stride. Her feet dragged so much she might as well have been skating across the dirt.
Then, as if by some divine providence, the pace ahead of them slowed. Not by much, but compared to what they'd been doing, it was practically like standing still.
It took a few minutes of the slower pace before Gomez' brain started functioning again. She took several too-large sips from her canteen, trying to replace some of the gallons of water she'd lost in the last… god knows how long. Next to her, Dick was doing the same. Hell, even Sergeant Frankel looked dead on her feet.
Then she heard Lt. Lang's voice from the front. It sounded just out of breath. Bastard. "Ma'am?"
Blake was the one that replied, "We're losing the ones at the back."
The Winter Contingent, almost as a single entity, turned to look back at the three soldiers, still stumbling along at the new pace.
"If they couldn't keep the pace then they should have stayed behind," Major Schnee said coldly. She sounded more or less as tired as Blake, which wasn't much.
"C'mon, Winter," Yang said, "It's not like they volunteered. I mean, that Gomez chick hates me; she'd never volunteer for this."
Gomez hadn't thought her exhausted face could get any more red, but apparently it could. She tried to come up with something scathing to say in response to that patronizingly considerate comment, but her brain hadn't completely solidified yet.
Major Schnee was silent for a moment. "Fine," she said. "We can run ahead."
"Nah," Ruby said, returning from her trip into the trees, apparently hearing the whole conversation as if by magic. "We'll just practice longer on the rocks. The platoon'll get plenty from this pace. Right, Lieutenant?"
When he replied, Lt. Lang almost didn't seem like he wanted to, "Yes, ma'am, we will."
"Teams stick together," Weiss said, her voice unstable as she kept up her running. "Rise or fall, we stick together."
Winter didn't respond.
It took them who knew how long to reach the rocks but when they finally did Gomez, Dick, and even the Sarge were too exhausted to wind down the right way. They just flopped onto the ground like a couple of kitbags, trying to suck the sky into their lungs and failing miserably.
When Gomez finally got enough oxygen in her to form a coherent thought, she looked around and saw something that almost reenergized her through sheer vindication: the Winter Contingent seemed almost as tired as she was.
The four girls and Major Schnee, however, were still standing, and actually winding themselves down properly.
Several minutes passed. One by one, starting with Lt. Lang, the Winter Contingent rose to their feet. By that point, the four girls and Major Schnee seemed fully recovered. Hell, even Gomez was feeling better, and it looked like the Sarge and Dick were too.
"Did you have a plan for how to do this?" Major Schnee asked doubtingly.
"Of course," Weiss replied, sounding mildly insulted.
"We'll start with one-on-one, switch that up, then move on to two-on-one, switch that up, then, depending, either three-on-one or tackling spectres," Ruby replied.
Gomez saw Major Schnee raise her eyebrow. "You don't think I can take each of you individually?"
"Of course you can," Blake replied. That seemed to take Major Schnee aback.
"Yeah, that's just training for us," Yang said. "It's been a while since we went up against someone better than us."
"It's been difficult to practice as a result," Weiss said. "Let alone improve."
Gomez had no idea what they were talking about.
Major Schnee stayed silent. Then, "Alright. That seems like a plausible plan."
"Your sister is always such a charming fountain of praise," Yang said to Weiss.
Gomez saw a muscle jump in Major Schnee's jaw. She couldn't understand why Yang wasn't shivering in fear like Gomez was at the look the Major directed at the blonde woman.
"Right then," Ruby said. "Me first."
Gomez still didn't understand what the girls were talking about. However, sitting up and looking out at the tall, jagged rocks jutting up from a small canyon, it didn't take long for that to change.
oooooo
Dazed, Gomez watched the four Huntresses and Major Schnee make their way across the tips of rocks to meet the rest of the soldiers at the top of their small cliff.
The Winter Contingent was huddled together talking about the… indescribable conflict between gods they'd all just witnessed, while Sergeant Frankel, Gomez, and Dick couldn't even form a single thought about it all.
"...you had kept your feet up, I wouldn't have been able to pin you," Major Schnee said critically to Yang.
"And if you hadn't made a point of pinning her down, I wouldn't have been able to get under your guard," Blake said.
"Face it Winter, you're amazing at fighting single opponents and hordes of Grimm, but you kinda stink at fighting a good team," Ruby said lightly.
"We have to fix that," Weiss said blandly. Gomez saw the look Schnee shot her sister; it was the same sort of crippling glare that the Sarge said she'd gotten the day before.
Major Schnee looked away first. "Lieutenant," she snapped off.
"Ma'am!" Lt. Lang said.
"I want that recording on my desk by 1900," she said.
"I've already sent it ahead, ma'am," Lt. Lang said. "It'll be there when you get back."
Major Schnee paused. "Good. Weiss, your team sets the pace."
Gomez nearly died right then and there.
"Alright," Ruby said, while Weiss narrowed her eyes at her sister. Winter shot a glare back at her.
"Sergeant Frankel!"
"Ma'am!" the Sarge belted out.
"A word," Major Schnee said menacingly.
The Sarge walked over like she was heading toward a firing squad. Major Schnee and the sergeant had a few words, Sarge went stiff as Dick's dad at the gentleman's club, and then she walked back to where Dick and Gomez were watching.
"What did she-"
"Not now," Sarge said. As much as Gomez wanted that answer, Major Schnee was right over there. Gomez'd rather jump in a deathstalker hole than cross her over this.
Frankly, she counted herself lucky to be alive already.
oooooo
"What did she say, Sarge?" Gomez demanded when they got back through the gate and the five of them had gotten some of their breath back. Downhill was definitely easier.
The sergeant stopped where she stood. "Listen up you two, because I'm only allowed to say this once," she glared menacingly at each of them. She took a deep breath, "Everything you just saw, from the run up to the run down, is now classified Need-To-Know Secret."
"What?" Gomez asked. "But why-"
"Shut up, Corporal," Sergeant Frankel snapped. "Why doesn't matter. What matters is that Major Schnee, a high-ranking member of the most elite fighting force in the entire Atlas Military, just hung a 30-year jail sentence around our necks if we say a damn thing to anyone. Anyone, Gomez."
The sergeant glared at her, "You call your mama and tell her, you go to prison." the Sarge glared at Dick, "You blab to each other in the barrack, you go to prison." She shifted her glare again, "You tell you damn dog about it, you go to prison. That's what Secret means.
"Need-to-Know means we can't even tell our superiors," Sergeant Frankel said darkly. "None of them, not even Colonel Hollin. Both of you understand that?"
Gomez and Dick nodded their heads. Gomez swallowed. "I'm starting to feel that bit you mentioned, Sarge."
"Good," she replied, momentarily looking frightened. "Keep it there."