Gilbert was right. The south side of Yharnam sucked. There he met more mobs of the lunatics that were ad hoc Hunters and their crazed hounds, more rabid beasts and for some reason flocks of obese, overlarge crows would try and peck out his eyes and nip at his heels with too sharp beaks. Thankfully, his flamesprayer was for the most part effective enough for him to clear out a path for himself. He had also met some other denizens of Yharnam who, mostly in none too uncertain terms, had told him to fuck off. As he came up to another lit window, he expected the same treatment but still knocked and greeted anyways.
"Who... are you?" He heard a young girl ask. "I don't know your voice, but I know that smell... Are you a hunter? Then, please, will you look for my mum? Daddy never came back from the hunt, and she went to find him, but now she's gone, too... I'm all alone... and scared..."
He heard her desperate whimpering, but what he was actually concerned about was who she sounded like. He paused. Why did that voice sound familiar?
"Alright, miss, I'll look for your mum, and perhaps I'll find your dad as well. But first, I need your name."
""Really? Oh, thank you! My m-mum wears a red jeweled brooch. It's so big and... and beautiful." She stammered hastily, as if she couldn't wait for him to go. "You won't miss it. Oh, I mustn't forget. If you find my mum, give her this music box." A small hand poked through the bars of the window, and Noctis plucked out of it what looked like an antique music box. "It plays one of daddy's favorite songs. And when daddy forgets us we play it for him so he remembers. Mum's so silly, running off without it!"
"Sorry, miss, but I didn't catch your name. Could you tell me?" Noctis replied.
"Oh, it's Rose." She said.
Something seemed to crash into his mind, and he involuntarily recoiled. Everything seemed to fit together now. The voice, the name, everything. The girl on the other side of the window in front of him was Ruby, somehow. A mental facsimile, or an alternate version altogether? "Thank you, miss Rose. I'll be on my way, then." He forced out, trying his best to keep his voice level and calm. Luckily, it worked, eliciting a slightly happier "Thanks for chatting. Please be careful out there!"He smiled, despite himself. Whatever fever dreams he found himself in every night, Ruby would still remain Ruby.
He walked through the sewers. Annoyingly enough, even such a place as this was not left empty, with more bloodthirsty Yharnamites and beasts. It was a mixture of open areas and claustrophobic corridors, entirely covered by a layer of foul, stagnant water. Luckily his greatcoat was proofed against biological and chemical threats, because otherwise he would have died from contamination numerous times. As it was, the smell was nearly enough to kill him. Meeting Eileen along the way had been nice, but concerning as well.
"Oh, a hunter, are ya? And an outsider?" She asked. Noctis nodded, still out of sorts from fighting that giant pig he had run into in the sewers. "What a mess you've been caught up in. And tonight, of all nights. Here, to welcome the new hunter." She had said, before passing him a handful of throwing knives. The purple gunk on the blades smelled foul, and when Noctis inquired, she told him that they were indeed poisoned. "Prepare yourself for the worst. There are no humans left. They're all flesh-hungry beasts, now."
"Huh." Noctis muttered. "I've met some people already, contrary to what you said. They still seem human enough to me."
"Hah, human? They'll all become beasts, sooner or later, with the tainted blood in their veins. That's the fate of all hunters, eventually."
"They're not Hunters." He replied. "The elderly, the young, the ailing, that's who they are. They've shut themselves into their homes, placing incense outside to ward off the beasts."
"Oh. So you seek a safe place for them to hide? It's novel, seeing a hunter concerned not about chasing down his prey but instead looking out for those unable to defend themselves. I'll help you look out for a safe haven, but first we need to clear the streets."
Noctis leaned on the rail next to Eileen, taking out the music box that the little girl had given him. He opened it, trying to read the faint lettering embossed on the inside of the thing, but he could only recognise two words.
Viola and Gascoigne.
He passed the music box to Eileen, asking "Do you recognise these names? A little girl asked me to find her parents earlier, and she gave me this music box. Apparently her father is a hunter, who also tends to forget his family. Do you know what she meant?"
"I don't recognise Viola's name, but I do recognise Gascoigne." She said, peering at the lettering of the music box. "He's gone mad from the beast hunt, and thus he's my mark."
"Your mark?" He asked. "Don't all Hunters hunt beasts?"
Eileen paused, before saying, "A hunter such as you should be hunting beasts. Leave the hunting of hunters to me."
"So you watch the watchmen, huh?" Noctis mused. Eileen nodded, before giving him back the music box, and he kept it. He took a deep breath, and rested his arms on the fence.
"Still lingering about? What's wrong? A hunter, unnerved by a few beasts? Heh heh… No matter, without fear in our hearts, we're little different from the beasts themselves."
"No, I'm just afraid for the little girl. If Gascoigne's gone mad…" He dropped off. "His wife, Viola, went looking for him. She forgot the music box, and without it, she wouldn't stand much of a chance."
"Then what are you still doing here?" Eileen asked sharply. "Enough trembling in your boots. A hunter must hunt."
"Yeah. I should go and check on them instead of staying here and guessing." He admitted. "See you around, Eileen."
Something was wrong with the people of Yharnam, he realised. It shamed him to admit that it had taken him the better part of a week to recognise it, but there was something deeply unsettling about them. Beasts had a sort of damp stink, smelling pungently of iron and something else he couldn't recognise. Even the various presumably human Hunters he had run into had the same sort of stench, but it was more drawn out, more faint. Their inhuman stature was also a key point to note, with their entire bodies looking like they had been stretched out, so tall and lanky they were. Even the city itself smelled like that, a miasma that seemed to totally envelop every square centimetre of everything. Everything just seemed so… unnatural. The sewers has been as sprawling as he had expected, with giant rats and the occasional massive boar infesting them. He had also been attacked by seemingly drowned corpses that had tried to swarm him and drown him in the sewer water, but at least his Molotovs were still effective down there.
Granted, he had died a few times, once to a massive flaming ball that some bastards had had the idea of rolling along a bridge, but other than that things had gone rather well, so he was whistling to himself happily when he walked into their Tomb of Oedon. That had probably been why things had gone so badly when they did.
He observed a man, garbed in the manner of a priest, wearing long black robes and a wide-brimmed hat that stank heavily of the beastly stench, bring an alarmingly large axe down on a clearly dead beast. The blade of the axe cut into the flesh, before the man yanked it out with a sickening squelch. Then, he brought it down again, repeating the process over and over until the beast was cut into grisly pieces under him. "Beasts all over the shop…" He grimly muttered, stepping away from his prey. Then, he started to turn to look at Noctis who realised that the man's eyes were actually covered with bandages. "You'll be one of them, sooner or later…" He snarled. The man bared his teeth, rather like a predatory animal, and again a name emerged from the depths of his mind.
Father Gascoigne.
He hesitated for a bit, processing the name before it fell into place. This was the young girl's father. However, that hesitation gave the now named Gascoigne time to politely greet him with his axe to his skull. The last thing that Noctis felt was his head being split in two, and then nothing.
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He stirred in his sleep. Sooner or later, his intermittent waking would probably escalate to full blown sleep deprivation and the resulting fatigue, but as if to make up for it he apparently had a higher quality of sleep nowadays. He checked the pockets of his pyjamas, and sure enough, he felt both the music box and the two badges he had been fortunate enough to find. Somehow, reality and his dreams had crossed over enough for non-consumable items to appear in both, but luckily his blood vials, quicksilver bullets, Molotovs and the like had not followed suit. It would have been awkward to explain why he had more than twenty vials of blood in his locker.
Speaking of the blood, he had normally injected it intravenously like Iosefka had told him to, but once he had tried simply drinking it. It was a dream, after all, so what harm could come of it? It turned out that it tasted disgusting, possessing a cloying sweetness that seemed to stick on his tongue. He had promptly leaped off a bridge to his temporary death, just to get the taste out of his mouth.
Anyway, what to do with Father Gascoigne? Clearly the man was out of his mind, but maybe the music box might be able to bring him back from the brink?
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He entered the Tomb of Oedon again, clearing away the same barrier of fog that had formed at the bridge where he had met the Cleric Beast. This time, Gascoigne skipped the introductory speech and instead lunged at him with his axe. He sidestepped the man, barely avoiding the uppercut that Gascoigne swung at his neck. Then, he fished out the music box and started to turn the handle. A soft tinkling melody began to play and when Gascoigne heard it, he just stopped attacking. Hell, he stopped doing anything except clutch his head in pain and mutter to himself. "What have I done? Oh, what have I done?" The older Hunter whispered to himself, before recovering. He brought his gun to point at Noctis, before pulling the trigger and sending a spray of buckshot at his head. Somehow, Noctis dodged and the tombstone that was behind him shattered into pieces of masonry. He played the music box again, eliciting the same response again. Noctis dodged another string of attacks from Gascoigne, all the while keeping his distance, and for luck he decided to play the music box a third time. This time, however, things turned out differently. A shockwave knocked Noctis's feet from underneath him, and when he turned to look at Gascoigne he could stare in shock. The man's clothing had ripped and tore where it would not fit his much larger form, exposing grey fur. His axe and pistol lay abandoned on the ground, replaced by long, sharp claws.
"The things you hunt, they're not beasts. They're people." A voice rang out in his head. It sounded like an old war veteran, grizzled and gruff, but Noctis could not name who it belonged to. It felt as if he had forgotten the man's name, and it was just out of reach.
He dashed forward, snatching up the pistol from the ground. He pointed it at the beast that was once Gascoigne, emptying shell after shell into the massive brute that was advancing on him, turning its torso into nothing short of mincemeat with the amount of buckshot he sent at it, but it still did nothing. A swipe of the beast's claws sent him sprawling to the ground, and then it went in for the kill, tearing his prone form to shreds.
He woke up again, breaking out in cold sweat. That death had been remarkably painful, as being ripped to pieces should be, but now he didn't have a plan to save Gascoigne. He brooded silently. His only hope, the music box, had failed, and all there was left to do was to grant the hunter his well deserved rest. He silently apologised to the little girl, before nodding off once again. He wondered about Gascoigne. Would that be what he would become, in time? Nothing but a beast?
He failed to notice Carmine staring at him with rapt interest.
Somehow, he still had Gascoigne's pistol with him when he next materialised in Yharnam. Honestly, it was less a pistol and more a sawn-off shotgun, which was useful in the densely packed streets, as often a close range shot would either stagger an assailant enough for him to pull off a visceral or they would just send them flying off into the distance. As it were, a proper headshot would pulp the skull of anything short of that damn sewer pig that had quite literally swallowed him whole. This time, he unsheathed his rapier in full knowledge that there would be no peaceful solution to this conundrum.
For the third time that night, Gascoigne leapt at him with his axe before bringing it down with a thunderclap that dislodged untold years' worth of sepulchral dust as he dodged it. He stabbed Gascoigne in the back, eliciting a spurt of too thick blood, before slashing him in the ribs. However, he then saw ribbons of gore burst out of his own side, replaced by an axe blade larger than his own head. He stumbled back, his ribs on fire, and then Gascoigne shot him point blank in the chest. The impact sent Noctis flying into a gravestone, with his armour thankfully taking most of the impact, and taking the opportunity of the brief respite he used a blood vial. The injury knitted itself shut, and he rose again. He lunged, running Gascoigne through on his rapier, but Gascoigne kicked him away before hacking into his shoulder with his axe. Noctis backstepped, holstering the shotgun-pistol and injecting himself with another blood vial while blasting away at the crazed Hunter with the transformed gun-rapier. Most of the time, he flinched when the hollow-point slugs punched into his body and expanded within him, but he didn't flinch nearly enough for Noctis to effectively keep him at bay. He extended the blade again, before swiping at Gascoigne's gut. Ribbons of foul scarlet blood sprayed outwards, and Gascoigne fell onto one knee. Noctis, feeling that inhuman strength in his arm once more, punched his entire hand into the Hunter's chest cavity before ripping it out. Gascoigne slid backwards and Noctis honestly thought that he had killed him, at least until he got up.
"Ooh, what's that smell…" He growled. "The sweet blood, ooh, it sings to me! It's enough to make a man sick." He then yanked the haft of his axe outwards, revealing that it was actually a telescoping handle. The oversized blade now made sense, Noctis realised, because what Gascoigne was holding right now was essentially a halberd. He recognised the increased strength, range and leverage that the halberd offered, but what he had failed to factor in was Gascoigne himself. His opponent was larger, stronger, more powerful and more experienced for him, which meant that when he brought the blade downwards onto his right shoulder, he brought it down much too fast for Noctis to follow. The blade cleaved straight through the armour and greatcoat sleeve protecting it, right down through muscle and bone, cutting his right arm off in one swing of the axe. His rapier clattered to the ground, still in the final death grip of his right hand. Noctis stared in shock, knocked onto his back by the force of the hit, before pulling out the pistol and trying to blast Gascoigne in the face. However, Gascoigne used his own pistol to shoot it out of his hand, before releasing it and placing it against his skull.
"Too proud to show your true face, eh?" He wondered, more to himself than to his quarry. "But a sporting hunt it was…"
Then, he pulled the trigger, and Noctis's world cut to nothing.
Was Gascoigne toying with him the whole time, playing with his food before he consumed it ravenously? He would never know.
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Noctis was awakened by the sensation of shaking. He opened his eyes, taking in the sight of Carmine Rienhardt looming over him, her hands on his shoulders. Carmine, despite being probably the most durable living thing he had met, turned out to be surprisingly lithe and graceful out of her armour, almost elfin in appearances despite being pale to the point of seeming anemic. It would certainly have been a very welcoming sight had he not just realised what she was saying.
"Come on, wake up! Argent, we are nearly late!" She yelled. Damn Gascoigne, he may have been a good father but to hell with him for almost making him late for the trip to Forever Fall. Lapis was hurriedly pulling on the form-fitting black bodysuit that was to fit underneath her armour, while Icarus was putting on an olive drab long-sleeved shirt and a khaki set of long pants. He practically leapt out of bed, rushing off to the bathroom to settle his basic hygiene before getting ready for the field trip.
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"Auxilia? Daedalus? What the hell? I've never heard of those two before." Cardin growled. He was still on edge from the confrontation on the roof the night before, but still, this new information made him nervous. The table creaked as he put his head in his hands, his elbows doing their best to transfer the weight of his upper body onto the table.
Sky whimpered, while Russel began to shake. Russel spoke up first. "You haven't heard of Daedalus? He's basically the White Fang's very own angel of death. An assassin so good that he has to leave evidence on purpose to prove that he was even there at all. He's an urban legend, the Fallen Angel. They say he's even got the Minotaur on his leash, but apparently he dropped off the radar a few years ago. Not before he racked up a considerable body count on the way down, though..."
Cardin processed the data for a bit, before turning to Sky. "The Auxilia isn't as well known because she doesn't really do anything much outside of aiding the Legion's core in Vacuo and managing internal affairs, but my dad knows some about her since he's in the Legion himself. Hell, she's the reason he's been trying his whole life to keep me on the straight and narrow. Apparently, they only set her on the biggest of jobs, like taking out external branches of Legion extremists that have gone rogue. They say she's taken on entire armoured columns by herself, Scorpion MBTs and all, and won. They say she's immortal, that she's some sort of avenging armoured juggernaut. In all honesty, we didn't stand much of a chance from day one."
Cardin slammed the table with his fist. "So you're telling me that since the Auxilia is here in Beacon, we now have to assume that Daedalus is here as well?" He yelled. "What is this, some sort of tit-for-tat move? Great! Now we're pinned between the two biggest paramilitary forces barring the four kingdoms, and we just had to get into the damn crossfire so perfectly that both sides might be gunning for us now! Fuck!"
His teammates flinched, but their expressions told him that they agreed at least. Potentially having the Legion's hammer working with the White Fang's chisel would be really bad for them, especially since they had been a conveniently placed chunk of stone that had stubbed the toe of the sculptor. Cardin sighed. "You know what? Let's deal with this shit after the field trip."
"Hold on." Dove said, raising one hand. The other was frantically pecking at the keyboard of their room CPU, which was hooked up to all their scrolls. "I've uploaded anything I could find about Auxilia and Daedalus on the CCT onto our scrolls, just in case. By the way, apparently Cainhurst gave the school a gift. It's this downloadable AI called 'GEMINI' that's interlinked with all of the other scrolls and computers in Beacon. What this means is that we can now look at our teammates' aura levels as well as our own, as well as do other things on the go like accept missions, receive live updates or generally get our admin stuff done."
"Nice." Russel said. "What else does it do? That seems a bit boring, but it's useful at least."
"Well, it plays a mean game of chess." Dove smiled. "Somehow it checkmated me in seventeen moves just now. It even got through my signature 'Belkan Defence'. Quaint. But I'll beat it eventually, I'm sure."
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Pyrrha polished the point of Miló, turning it so that it gleamed in the light, before checking the structural quality of Akoúo. Noticing a few scratches left over from Initiation, she used her cloth to buff them out. Finally, she transformed Miló into its rifle form, cocking the semi-automatic bolt before raising it to check the sights. Unfortunately, the moment she pointed it upwards, she has inadvertently set her sights on Jaune. Jaune, for his part, jumped back in surprise and raised his hands in surrender. What was more worrying was the absolute terror on his face, not at her, but at someone else.
His face was pale and his eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep.
"What's wrong, Jaune?" She asked, lowering her rifle.
"I dunno… it's just…" He sighed. "It's your brother. He scares the shit out of me."
Pyrrha stared at him. "What did he do?" In the background, he watched as Noctis withdrew a long dagger with a too-long crossguard out of his locker, before transforming it into what looked like the unholy lovechild of a sawn-off shotgun and a flintlock pistol. He broke open the chamber, inspecting the mechanisms within, before closing it back up and transforming it back into its dagger form. Then he pressed a sliding switch on the handle, causing the side pieces of the blade to split open and become blade trappers. He slid the switch back, and the trident main gauche folded up back into the form of a dagger. With his new dagger-gun offhand weapon strapped in its sheath at his right side, and his laser-rapier at his left hip, he presented a heavily armed, very dangerous figure. Jaune gulped.
"He literally held Cardin over the edge of the roof last night, threatening to drop him." He blurted out. "He threatened to burn everything Cardin loved if he didn't back off, and guess what? He did. Cardin hasn't bothered me since, but I feel that what he did was way too much."
Pyrrha stared at him, before nodding. She grabbed his shoulders, before replying. "Trust me when I tell you that all my brother understands is 'too much'. He lost his original family and his arm in Mountain Glenn, just as Ren and Nora lost their families in Kuroyuri. Surely you've heard Ren tell us his and Nora's story. My brother had it worse." She said, gripping Jaune so hard it started to hurt.
"He was rescued by a Huntress who died in front of him, protecting him from Grimm. Then he got rescued again, this time by my dad who took him in. He imprinted on me, his sister, as his main source of emotional support. To that end, he does literally nothing else but keep those he cares about safe because he trusts no one else to do the job correctly. His semblance slowly destroys his capacity to feel any sort of emotion or exhibit any sign of free will every time he uses it, but he tries, Jaune. He tried so hard to stay human, and this is how he does it. Nora plays down her trauma as humour, while Ren acts as Nora's pillar of support to help both of them. My brother uses his as a shield to protect others."
She moved in closer towards him, green eyes staring into his blue eyes with what looked like anger. "He has only us left, Jaune. You want to be the hero because you feel like that's expected of you. He is the hero, to me at least, not because he wants to be but because that's the only way his humanity can survive. His semblance, his paranoia, his trust issues, they can and will tear him apart if he doesn't have this. He needs me to centre him as much as I need him to be at my side." She sighed deeply, before pushing him away. "You don't get to become the hero just because you want to, Jaune. Oftentimes, ambition leads you down the wrong path no matter how good your intentions are. You got into Beacon for free, while the rest of us had to struggle our way in. Noctis is struggling to stay Noctis, and plus he has his own team to manage, so please forgive him if he gets a little intense at times."
They were interrupted by Noctis coming over and tapping Pyrrha on the shoulder. "Morning, sis, and good morning to her fearless leader as well. Would it be possible for your team to help us hide away a stockpile of the sap Professor Peach is having us collect? Lapis and Carmine somehow came up with a recipe to make some sort of elixir with the sap after flipping through that book we found in the tomb, and maybe if you four help us we'll give you guys a cut of the product." He grinned. "Nah, I'm kidding. Goodwitch would kill us if we started distributing it in the school, but who said we can't sell it in Vale? Junior owes me a favour anyways…" Noctis mused. Jaune stared in disbelief while Pyrrha jabbed her finger back at Nora and Ren, the latter of which was struggling to carry a collection of large clay jars. "I'm pretty sure Ren and Nora would be more useful in that regard than us. Why not ask them?" She smiled. Before Noctis made to move on to their teammates, he turned to Jaune. He impaled him on that baleful gaze of void-black eyes, before asking, "Did Cardin give you any trouble after I left?" That tone again… it made Jaune's spine tingle. "N-no?" He stammered out.
"Good." He said, before walking away. Jaune could have sworn that Noctis was more than a bit bipolar, but never mind that. He watched as Noctis waved goodbye to his sister, before pulling on his gas mask. As he turned back to Pyrrha, he heard the loud clicks of Noctis strapping on his helmet and attaching the armour plate that protected his face.
"See? That's why he scares me. That spontaneity…" He explained, but Pyrrha was having none of it.
"No, that's free will. That's what I want to see from him. You'll learn eventually, fearless leader, what it takes to be a hero." She grinned. It was not a nice grin. "My brother and I will help you with that, whatever it takes."
Jaune's scroll buzzed. A message from Goodwitch which he promptly read, mostly to change the subject. "We lift off in fifteen minutes." He read aloud for the benefit of his team. "Get ready in five. We need to get ready to bring up our cargo."
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Red leaves crunched under Icarus's boots. The scenery was nice, yes, but Goodwitch had told them that there were Grimm infesting the areas. Might as well stay alert.
Legend told of a massive King Taijitu, larger than the Amity Express that connected the fortress city of Atlas to the rest of the world, that slumbered somewhere in Forever Fall. The sap from these trees had once been a valued commodity that was quite literally worth its own weight in gold for confectioners and brewers who would utilise the sap's unique flavour for their own crafts, to make alcohol or expensive candies or whatnot. The point is that since these trees only grew in this one forest despite the concerted efforts of horticulturists through the ages, people used to flock here to harvest the sap for trade and other purposes. It was rather like the gold rush of antiquity, coupled with the current vocation of truffle hunting.
However, this sap rush was stopped in its tracks by this Taijitu, Janus. It had devoured sap collectors incessantly as only an ambush predator could, killing them by the hundreds before the prospectors eventually backed off. Some people had declared Janus dead, especially with Beacon Academy so close to Forever Fall, but others had sworn that it was still alive. Whatever the answer was, Icarus certainly didn't want to find out.
The muffled crunch of hapless leaves being crushed to powder approached behind him, heralding the arrival of his partner. He turned to see Lapis's gauntleted hand at her ear, fiddling with the comm bead there. The comm beads had been his idea, as since they were a team they may as well be able to work as a cohesive team. "That's weird." Lapis remarked, after fixing her comm bead. "Everyone else has already run into some Grimm, but we haven't. You know, Beowolves, Ursa, things like that. Basic shit. But there's nothing here."
Something flashed on his HUD, and after he checked it he came to the conclusion that the inbuilt sensors were broken. They were detecting some sort of seismic disturbance a few kilometres away, and approaching fast.
"Is it just me, or is it my armour's sensors going to hell again?" Lapis suddenly asked. "Because they're detecting something coming fast, and it looks big."
They both paused. "How big was that Taijitu that people said was living here?" Lapis asked.
"About as big as the Amity Express." Icarus replied.
"Well, shit." They said in unison.
Icarus's HUD started to blare a proximity alarm and before any of them could react, a massive black shape burst out of the ground next to them. It was the giant black head of a King Taijitu, larger than a train engine and snapping at the empty air where it thought they were at. Lapis stared in shock at the massive creature before her, while Icarus raised his rifle and lined up the Taijitu's black head in his scope before opening fire. One shot rang out, ricocheting off the scales before he worked the bolt and sent another round at the snake but only to the same effect. Concerningly, two of his .50 BMG rounds that were usually enough to punch through even the hull of armoured vehicles did nothing but plink off of the giant snake's scales. Janus slid back into the ground, causing the ground to shake almost like a minor earthquake.
Lapis swore, hefting the laser mode of her weapon while Icarus leapt into the air and hovered.
"I can't damage it!" He yelled. "Lapis, when it comes up next, burn it!"
"Yeah, but where the hell is it?" She shouted back. A few trees dislodged by the Taijitu's emergence fell to the ground, and before long the snake's black head burst out of the ground to engulf them.
"It can't detect us by sight or smell, since it's underground and we're both fully covered, so how does it know where it are?" Icarus wondered aloud, letting his voice carry into the comms. "I'll draw it out. Ready, Lapis?"
"Ready. What's your plan?" She asked. He answered her by landing onto a clearing in the trees. If his theory was correct…
"Icarus… what are you doing?" Lapis raised her voice in alarm. He was proven correct by the tremors that began to shake everything around him. He leapt to the side, just before the space he had previously been occupying was replaced by a snapping set of black jaws that could have easily swallowed a tank whole.
"It's sensing us by vibration!" He hollered through the comms, before even that was drowned out by the all too familiar thrum of Lapis's laser. He heard "[LASER DISCHARGING]" echo much too late into his ear, as a massive sky blue beam of energy slammed into Janus. Great gouts of glowing slag burst out of the point of contact, as the laser burned its way through the Grimm's scale armour. Steam billowed from the massive charred wound but even that seemed to be nothing more than a flesh wound to the ancient King Taijitu, which simply spat black ichor at them before retreating back into the earth.
"Well, that was a thing." Lapis stated. "You still alive, buddy? Because that was one hell of a gambit."
"I'm fine." He replied, before raising his rifle and shooting the ground of a hill more than a kilometre away. A spray of dirt bloomed skyward, and the rumbling under their feet slowly moved away. "This should get Janus off our tracks for now, but let's go and get the sap back to the Bullhead before it comes back."
Lapis huffed. "Hopefully Noctis and Carmine are having a better time at this." She mused, before lifting up the crate of sap-filled jars that she had discarded in the fight. "That elixir Carmine came up with had better knock me out after the first shot."
"It may not be alcohol, after all." Icarus mused. "If you ask me, that book you picked up seems a bit sketchy. I mean, there was something-"
"Wait." Lapis interrupted. When he turned to look at her, Icarus saw her sifting through the remnants of one of the trees that had been pulverised by Janus. "I think I see something."
Then, she pulled out something white. Icarus wasn't close enough to see what it was, but when he moved closer to see what it was, he couldn't help but recoil in surprise. What Lapis was holding in her gauntlet was a White Fang mask, the superior make and the red markings embossed on the front stating that it had once been owned by a lieutenant. He swore under his breath. If this was what he thought it was...
"You know what this is?" Lapis asked, her tone suddenly becoming much more grim.
"A White Fang mask." He replied calmly but concernedly. "Lieutenant's personal one, from the looks of it."
"Is this yours?"
"Nope. I only worked with the Fang on a long term contractual basis." He explained. "I did the job they asked me to do, then they paid me and left me alone to grow my cabbages. Never joined up officially."
"Growing cabbages?" Lapis stared at him incredulously. "Seriously?"
"Well, how else was I supposed to earn a living? I left after they made me do one job too many, remember?"
"Guys, focus." Noctis's voice cut in over the comms. "This mask means either of two things. Either a lieutenant deserted the Fang and decided to seek refuge in Beacon, which is unlikely at best since high ranking members rarely if ever desert their faction, or we have a spy on our hands. I'm more inclined to believe the latter."
"So, we're hunting moles now. Great." Lapis grumbled.
"We should report back to base. Give me the mask, Lapis. I don't want you to accidentally break it or something." Icarus grabbed the mask, clipping it to his belt, before his flight pack flared into action with a kickback of hot air. "See you at the extraction point!" He shouted over his shoulder, as he leapt into the air and flew off into the distance.
He only barely heard Lapis's protesting reply. "Oh, come on! That's just unfair!" She hollered at him.
/-/
This was it. Noctis laid back on his bed, fiddling with his scroll. Carmine had set hers up to broadcast onto the monitor of the room computer for the benefit of everyone else, but he wanted to see every detail of their first mission briefing. There was a countdown on his screen, slowly ticking away the last minute to their briefing.
"So this is it, huh? Our first mission. I'm still wondering why Ozpin is keeping it all covered up. I mean, we can't be going that deep yet." He muttered, putting down his scroll to fiddle with his inbuilt flamethrower. Carmine looked at him dubiously. Did he have something on his face?
"Probably because Ozpin already knew about the spy in Beacon. Didn't you see how he didn't even blink when we told him about the mask?" Icarus answered, sitting cross-legged on his top of a bunk bed. "Probably we just answered some questions he had, and that was it."
"So what's our assignment gonna be? To hunt down this spy?" Lapis asked, steamed causally in another of the chairs. "If that's so, then you guys are gonna have to lead me along. Mostly, the Legion just ordered an airstrike on where we thought the perp was. A lot of collateral damage, but it gets the job done."
"Probably, but later. The countdown's almost up." Carmine said, elbows leaning on her knees in a wooden chair at the desk in the corner. Just as she finished, the countdown finished, the image transitioning into the black silhouette of a human head.
"Good evening, Team NICL. After analysing footage taken from cameras across the city, the case is clear; Roman Torchwick has allied himself and his assets with the Vale cell of the White Fang, led by a highly unstable man named Adam Taurus, better known as the Minotaur." There was a photo montage of the two targets, and both of them were at least slightly familiar from the news coverage - mostly negative - that they and their actions warranted.
"With equal parts of guts and guile, Roman Torchwick runs a seven-figure lien criminal empire. The word is, the charismatic yet self-serving gang Lord is hell bent on upping his game from stealing from Dust shops to robbing the Schnee Dust Company itself. The White Fang were presumed to have allied themselves with Torchwick for the purposes of obtaining stolen Dust, which is Roman's specialty. At least, it was presumed until we obtained this."
The montage of security footage that had showed Roman and Adam interacting in various locations cut off to a shot caught in the gap between two shipping containers of Roman's gangsters loading what looked like Paladin mechanised battlesuits into a cargo airship for transport.
"This shot has shed new insight on the White Fang's purpose in Vale. Now, we can determine that Adam is preparing for some sort of armed offensive, the purpose of which is unknown." Icarus and Lapis both leaned back in surprise. He couldn't lean back because he was on his back already, but he still got his fair share of shock and awe. Carmine unsurprisingly just looked confused.
"Clearly the two men have struck a deal. Consequently, if we can cripple Torchwick's criminal network, we can severely limit the ability of the White Fang to obtain any more supplies for whatever they are planning. But to do so, we need to know exactly what is going on. Therefore your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate the operation under the oversight of either Adam's side or Roman's, figure out what is going on and what is being planned, and to sabotage their efforts such that whatever happens runs contrary to their objective." The Headmaster's voice said. Noctis was meanwhile trying to process the mental calculus required to plan the inevitable infiltration operation.
"Finally, we are obligated to retire both Adam Taurus and Roman Torchwick to contain the damage both might inflict on Vale, and to ensure no repeat of whatever they might be planning." This time, all four of them had matching expressions of shock, but differing simultaneous. An assassination mission, Noctis mulled with a smile on his face, was just right up his alley. "All relevant intel has been uploaded onto your burner scrolls. I will leave you to prepare."
With that, the message shorted itself out.
Noctis spoke up first. "Damn it. Looks like we're jumping into the deep end in this one. Luckily, I have a cunning plan." He smirked to himself, before pulling out his scroll. "Our good friend Jaune has somehow made contact with a member of Roman's network, and thus we're gonna use that dealer as our insertion point. We sell our services to Roman as mercenaries, and hopefully he'll trust us enough to let us have a place at the table so to speak. The rest should be easy enough."
Carmine was already shovelling through the intel, trying to learn things that were common knowledge to the other three of them.
"Wasn't the Minotaur your old spotter?" Lapis asked, turning to Icarus. "I mean, I'm pretty sure that he only became regarded as his own person after you left."
"Yes, he was. Just as screwed up back then as he was now, and he always had this unhealthy attraction to his subordinate that was just pushing the half plus seven rule." The former assassin answered.
"So he's a pedophile as well as a zealot." Noctis cut in. "Great. Next thing we know he's trying to recruit kids with candy and trying to get them into a white, windowless van. From what I've seen and heard of Roman, he doesn't seem as bad as Adam. Apparently he sticks by this 'honour among thieves' code or something like that, so I figured that it'll be safer to stick with him first."
"Yes sir." Carmine replied. "Now, we have classes for the next few days so could we get the dealer to meet us this Saturday?"
"Yes, I can. Well, as soon as I get Jaune to give me his contact." He sighed, before pulling his blanket over himself. "Now, I'm going to sleep, so if y'all have any questions save them for tomorrow. Goodnight."
He pulled his blindfold over his eyes. Gascoigne's situation couldn't be helped, but surely the situation couldn't be that bad. After all, Viola must still be alive… right? He certainly hoped so, otherwise he honestly didn't know what he would do. Never mind that now. Why stay here and worry over possibilities, when he could take the chance to determine the outcome for himself? He drifted off to sleep, and the rank depths of Yharnam, with hope still on his lips.
(Yes, Icarus knows full well who our spy is. A certain little black cat... Anyway, I've decided to split up the Gascoigne arc othewise this chapter would become just a wall of text.)