A/N: So I like to think that, while I'm forcing you all to suffer through these long gaps between updates, I'm making up for it by posting large chapters. I think this one might seriously be my largest one yet.
3 minutes to Amity landfall
"Okay, we gotta haul ass now."
After the somber conversation between the Amity team and Central, the sudden change in the Beagle's tone startled Dr. Richard Tygan. And if that hadn't, the Captain's vice-grip on his arm did the trick as Tygan felt himself get yanked towards the doorway leading out of the control room and into the maintenance hallway. Debris littered the floor and stuck out from the walls while pockets of flame added a layer of hazy smoke that floated just below the ceiling.
"But… the propulsion burn… we've-"
"-done everything we can, doctor." Kelly finished as she followed the two men out the door, "It sounds like the Captain doesn't think we're dead men walking."
"God damn right I don't."
Beagle let go of Tygan's arm and instead put a firm hand on his back as they ran down the shattered corridor. The propulsion burn had nearly torn the station apart with the kinetic energy spike suddenly introduced into its structural members. Red lights flashed intermittently along the walls and klaxons blared as Amity begged for its final guests to get the hell out of Dodge.
"Mechs!" Kelly shouted as they rounded the corner onto another long stretch of their steel prison, and she tore a hole through the first one with her shotgun. Beagle swore and shoved Tygan behind a pile of rubble before he felt a trio of bullets slam into his armored back. The Lieutenant's shotgun barked again, and the second mech went down.
"We don't have time for this shit." Beagle growled, and he grabbed Tygan again, "Where the fuck's our backup?"
Jane raised eye eyebrow as she kept her shotgun trained ahead of the group while they ran. The maze of access tunnels in the underbelly of the stadium were hard enough to navigate the first time around; the flashing lights, the wailing sirens, and the growing smoke made it all but impossible now. If Beagle had an ace up his sleeve… "You mean the engineers? How are they supposed to find us?"
"Clearly you have a lot to learn about how Mac and I operate."
"Well why haven't you-?"
"-tried using comms?" Beagle shook his head as they continued to dance around the patches of fire in their race down the hallway, "Effective immediately following my last message to Central, we've gone dark."
The station groaned, and Tygan narrowly dodged a falling access panel cover thanks to a timely shove from the Captain, "The Queen…"
"Now you're getting it." Beagle said with a grin, "Foresta's power surge pretty much borked every non-propulsion system on Amity, so the worm is blind now."
Two more mechs stomped into view, but Tygan's armed escort was ready this time to put them down before they had the chance to fire off a single shot. They barrelled through the next door and into a large storage warehouse stacked high with crates upon crates of food and souvenirs for the tournament-goers.
"So how is Mac supposed to find you if we can't communicate?" Jane asked.
"He's an Engineer, and he knows that I suffer from The Curse. He improvised."
The station rumbled again, though more deeply and with greater force than the previous instances. The sound of Dust cracking and metal rending echoed throughout the room in response. When the metal beneath their feet began to screech, the trio skidded to a halt.
"That… can't be good." Jane commented as pinging and popping sounds added themselves to the cacophony.
The floor started to ripple, and Beagle backed up towards the wall. "C'mon, Mac…"
Like a weak seam torn apart, a chasm broke open on one end of the warehouse and started to rapidly propagate towards Beagle's group. Tygan had the wherewithal to follow the lead of his guardians and press himself against the box wall next to Jane as the fracture finished its journey and tore the room wide open. A torrent of air poured into the room and boxes toppled over as the sudden depressurization sucked them out through the fissure and into what Beagle could only assume was the outside air.
"So this curse that you and your friends speak of…" Tygan yelled over the noise of the gale, flinching as a box fell over a few inches to his right..
"I guess developing a sense of sarcasm moments before death is better than never, Doc." Beagle shot back. The metal floor continued to tear away as more boxes and debris crashed into the wound and Amity tore itself further and further apart apart. Beagle could now easily see through the floor and into the night sky as it raced past them. What he didn't expect to see, however, was a grappling hook penetrate into the decaying floor, followed by two more.
"Took you long e-fucking-nough." He almost laughed as MacAuley, Altinsoy, and Senchin zipped into the warehouse.
"Sen, get the Doc. Altinsoy, you've got the Lieutenant." MacAuley grinned at Beagle, "I'll deal with our whiny man-baby of a Captain."
The Engineers wasted no time in fastening themselves to their charges before falling back through the gap in the floor and deploying their Icarus hardware once they cleared the station. As the Colosseum gained some distance on the fliers, Beagle noticed that they weren't clear of the danger yet. Looking up, a veritable hailstorm of debris and detritus broke away from Amity and careened towards them as the station rumbled and shook in its death throes.
"We'll get torn apart if we stay in the debris field!" Altinsoy shouted.
MacAuley couldn't agree more, "If we stick close to the station, we can probably fly in under all of the trash and ride this sucker to the ground."
The other two engineers nodded in agreement, and the three pilots shot their grapples out towards the retreating station and reeled themselves close. Even so, shattered pieces of supercharged gravity Dust detonated at haphazard intervals, creating instantaneous spikes of gravitational energy and presenting a new problem for the flight crew. The random pulses pulled nearby debris into chaotic implosions that made it even more difficult for the pilots to identify immediate threats that needed to be dodged as they trailed just behind the descending station.
"Son of bitch!" Senchin hissed as a serrated plate ripped across his bicep. MacAuley saw the metal also crash into Senchin's wing, but was pleased when he saw that the reinforced fabric didn't tear. The burly engineer spooled out more of his grapple line and dropped altitude with Tygan to bank hard in an effort to break out of the projected path of the falling debris field. Altinsoy and MacAuley followed suit, though not before they suffered a few nicks and dings of their own.
"Man, this shit hurts." Mac whined, rubbing his neck where a piece of hard concrete beaned him.
"Why are we still here?" Tygan asked, clearly unnerved by their high-stakes game of dodgeball, "Wouldn't it be safer to fly away at a right angle to avoid the field and-"
"And what?" Beagle countered, "Land somewhere in a dark forest crawling with Grimm as we try to make our way back to Vale? Or to glide back through the Nevermore and Griffon-infested skies, hoping to dodge death long enough to regroup with Central?"
"What do you suggest then?" Tygan asked. MacAuley had to resist rolling his eyes at the scientist's hurt tone after his idea was shot down so quickly.
Senchin answered the question, "Stick with the station. The Grimm won't try to brave the debris field to get to us, and we can hole up in the ruins while you help us look for some answers."
"Answers? To what?!"
"You're not the least bit curious how our infectious friend managed to make everything go tits-up?" MacAuley asked, "Or if we can find something, anything, in this hunk of junk that might help us defend against another cyber intrusion somewhere further down the line?"
"Is that really our job, though?" Jane asked.
Kelly was starting to grow on Mac, but he balked at the short-sightedness of her question. "Was it really our job to research the Hyperwave Relay? Or the Ethereal Device? Did we really need to cut the corpses open and see what made them tick? Why didn't we just settle for pointing our guns at the ayys and pulling the trigger until they stopped moving?"
"Look out!" Altinsoy shouted. The others looked directly ahead to see a large chunk of Dust break free from the main crystal and sail towards them. They rolled out of the way and looked back in time to see a piece of concrete whiz by and slam into the crystal. The impact catalyzed the gravity well implosion the group had already experienced, but on a much larger scale. All three pairs were yanked towards the reaction's epicenter, and a trio of grunts echoed into the night as the grapple lines pulled taught on the engineers.
MacAuley felt the loud crack as his hook broke free. Senchin tried to catch his friend, but MacAuley slipped through his fingers and tumbled into the debris field with Beagle and upwards as gravitational aftershocks introduced more chaos into the storm of iron. Senchin and Altinsoy shared a nod, disengaged their grapples, and fell back to rescue their squadmate. Senchin wrapped himself protectively around Tygan while Altinsoy maneuvered herself underneath MacAuley so he could use her wings to break out of his death spiral and regain his bearings.
Where before they had been flying fairly level with the crystal formation at the bottom of the station, MacAuley's trip through the gravity pulse had pulled them all upwards while Amity continued to travel down. As debris once again rained around them, Mac could see over the top of the station and realized with no small sense of concern that it was headed towards a cliff.
A large piece of rebar slammed into Jane's chest, and she grunted in pain, "This is insane!"
"It's about to get worse." MacAuley said, gesturing towards the Colosseum as he finally regained control of his motion, "Look."
The rescue effort had put a decent amount of space between the fliers and the station, offering the team a view that showed Amity was barely hanging on by the proverbial thread as its crystal formation began to graze the treeline. Like the Titanic moments before it split in two, a deep crack echoed through the sky, followed by one final explosion as the massive structure broke apart. While the main crystal didn't implode, its final energy flare still tugged all the airborne debris (biological and otherwise) down and towards the Colosseum.
"Fucking hell…" Altinsoy groaned.
MacAuley ducked, dipped, and dove as he piloted his suit out of the way of falling concrete on its way back towards the station. While Remnant's true gravity eventually overpowered the main crystal's impulse, the flare had triggered all the smaller fragments in the debris field and had turned the sky into a maelstrom of serrated steel and stone. MacAuley didn't see the steel beam coming in from his four o'clock until it clipped his leg and sent him reeling.
A thunderous boom rolled through the air, and MacAuley didn't have to look to know that the station had finally slammed into the ground.
"You're free to stop spinning any day now, Mac." Beagle commented.
"Oh fuck off." MacAuley growled, "Your fat ass isn't making this any easier."
"Your fat ass isn't making this any easier…?"
MacAuley sighed, "… Sir."
"Thank you."
More concrete peppered his armor as MacAuley fought with his wings. Sounds of splintering wood and groaning metal rose up from below as the earth tried to slow the sliding colosseum to its final rest. A hand came out of nowhere to catch Beagle's and they saw Kelly raising an amused eyebrow while Altinsoy looked ahead for more danger.
"So does this mean the beers you owe me got upgraded into a case, or…?"
"That crystal still looks unstable." Tygan shouted as he and Senchin rejoined the formation, "I suggest we brace for the worst in case it detonates again."
MacAuley righted himself a second time and got his first good look at the wreckage. The Colosseum lay scattered near the edge of the large cliff face Mac had spotted earlier, with several sections of steel hanging off of the precipice. A hundred feet below them, a massive corridor of trees lay flattened and destroyed. The Engineer could only guess how much force Amity produced when it finally crashed. Just as Tygan had noted, the main Dust crystal (now split into two uneven halves) still glowed with energy.
"Easy does it, then." MacAuley answered. They still weren't out of the debris field yet, thanks to the random gravity wells keeping the junk up in the air far longer than naturally possible. Up ahead, another fragment detonated, sucking in a debris field and flinging it towards the ruined Colosseum. A few seconds later, a second fragment detonated and pulled the debris further along. Then a third. And a fourth.
"Ooohhh that can't be good." Kelly muttered.
"It appears that the conditions are just right for a chain reaction." Tygan mused, "Assuming the crystals fell off at a regular pace, each detonation appears to be priming the next one while pulling the rest-"
"Yeah, Vahlen was bad enough with that science shit when we had aliens trying to murder us." Beagle interrupted, "We get the idea."
While the group was far enough back to avoid the effects of the gravity chain, they could clearly see as each fragment detonated closer and closer to the main crystal.
"Nope. No way is my luck so insanely shitty that this bullshit is going to happen. I refuse to believe it."
"If we get through this, Captain, I'm demanding a case from you, too."
"Hope you like Foster's, then."
"Everybody hold on!"
One final fragment detonated, and a flash of energy rippled through the major crystalline structure. Then the ripple reversed and all hell broke loose. The team was dragged into the gravity well along with the rest of the flying shrapnel. Their preparation for the pulse helped keep them from tumbling out of control, but the rapid speed gain pushed the Icarus equipment to its limits. MacAuley struggled to stay steady in the air stream as wind roared in his ears and his vision slowly narrowed from the g-force. Additional gravity implosions peppered the descent towards the Colosseum, but the momentum caused by the main crystal dwarfed whatever energy the microimplosions created.
The massive spike in forward momentum caused by the gravity pulse caused the fliers to sail right past the Colosseum and over the cliffside that easily dropped a thousand feet into a vast valley below. Unfortunately, the pulse also pulled the debris field over the edge as well.
"Taking hits!" Senchin warned, though he wasn't the only one. Metal and grit lacerated MacAuley's armor and just as the group was starting to get their speed under control, he saw an iron javelin blow right through Altinsoy's wing.
"Fuck!"
While the damage to her wing didn't cause Altinsoy to drop out of the sky, MacAuley could see that the asymmetrical friction from the tear was causing her to start rotating.
"Altinsoy, drop your wings!" Beagle ordered, "Senchin, get under Kelly while I hold on from above!"
The operatives sprung into action. Altinsoy retracted her ruined wings while MacAuley flew in close enough to let Beagle grab the Engineer by her waist. Senchin positioned himself underneath Jane, who held onto the Russian's shoulders. The group carefully banked into a wide u-turn and shot back towards their derelict target.
"We're still coming in pretty hot." The Lieutenant observed, "I'm not sure how we're going to stick this landing."
"Pure luck."
"I don't want to hear that coming from you."
MacAuley chuckled, "Damn, Beags, it's like we're back on ops with Strike Five."
"If we overshoot the Colosseum to bleed off more of our speed with a gradual descent, I believe we can still land safely in our current configuration."
"Doc's got a pretty good point, actually."
With the danger of debris mostly gone, the group leveled out and soared back over the massive scar left behind by Amity. MacAuley and Senchin coordinated a wide bank and brought the formation back around to the Colosseum for a second pass. The gravity burst had jumbled Amity's remains, throwing some of the wreck off the cliff while collapsing a large swath of trees into what remained up top. Smoke plumed out of and around the station, and MacAuley wondered how much of that was from Amity itself and how much was the new kindling. His thoughts were cut short when another low hum reached his ears.
Beagle only had time to utter a single "Why" before the second half of the crystal thrummed with energy and a (thankfully smaller) gravity well pulled the team into the wreckage. Beagle lost his grip on Altinsoy moments before MacAuley slammed into a section of the Colosseum's exterior and expelled all the air from his lungs as the Captain sandwiched him against the metal surface. As his vision went dark, MacAuley heard two other grunts nearby.
"At least… we made it." He wheezed. MacAuley felt Beagle unclip himself, and the loss of weight as the Captain rolled off made it much easier to breathe, but none of that really mattered to the Engineer for the moment. Because while his entire body ached, and he had no idea how many major injuries he sustained over the last five minutes, he knew one thing for certain.
He was alive.
"Beowolves sighted to the north of Sector Three. Durand, that's you."
"Yep." Annette acknowledged, "We'll be fast and silent."
She broke away from the refugee trail with her two squadmates and ABRN, weapons ready to eliminate the threat before it got close to the wounded that slowly limped their way through the war-torn city streets. Annette led the squad with Arslan down the main thoroughfare while Reese banked into an alley to scout out their flank and the other XCOM operatives took up the rear with Bolin and Nadir.
"You're not huntsmen." Arslan said. It wasn't a question, and it wasn't tentative. Annette glanced over to see the young woman side-eying her.
"Nope."
"We see you, Major. Hang a right, and you'll see the target about a block and a half away."
The group rounded the corner and immediately locked onto the pack of Beowolves prowling the street. The monsters weren't sprinting towards the refugee trail, but they were moving in that direction, clearly drawn by the mixture of sorrow and terror.
"Whiskey, Zip: flank right and ready yourselves to mop up anything that gets past us. Keep weaponsfire to a minimum." Annette commanded, "Bolin, Nadir: listen to your leader."
Arslan signaled for them to move up with the two women before she returned to their conversation, "So why lie?"
"Helluva lot easier than explaining that we're transdimensional soldiers coming off of a war where the fate of our species was literally hanging in the balance. Did you already forget about the portal that deployed more of our operatives into Amity's arena?" Annette answered, sword at the ready, "Besides, I'm training to be a huntress, so it's really only a half-lie when you think about it."
The monsters finally took notice of the group running at them and changed their course to meet the inbound assailants. Arslan hooked one of the wolves by its ankle and tipped the monster into its companions while Bolin leapt overhead and slammed his staff down upon the helpless monster's head. With the rest of the pack momentarily stunned by the force of the huntsman's blow, Annette impaled-then-decapitated one on her dash through the mass of Grimm. She readied La Volonté as one of the Beowolves raised a claw to attack, but the blur of a serrated hoverboard ripped the creature's flank wide open.
Arslan, evidently, had decided their conversation still wasn't over, "Even so, it's wrong for you to make yourself out to be someone you're not. How can I trust anything you say now?"
Switching her weapon back into a shotgun, Annette slammed the muzzle against the chest of another Beowolf and pulled the trigger. The force of the muffled explosion blasted the monster backwards and knocked it into its brother, allowing Arslan to palm strike its head into fine, black and red mist.
"You don't have to." Annette said with a shrug as she sized up the remaining contacts, "But you can bet your ass that every single operative has a huge fucking debt to pay back to Ruby and her crew." She lunged past the claws of another Beowolf and thrust the tip of her blade into its leg. The Grimm reared back to let out a pained howl, but Arslan shoulder-checked it in the chest, grabbed it by the skull, and threw it over her shoulder before slamming it into the ground. Annette shoved her sword into its throat and pulled the blade all the way down to its stomach. "And I can speak confidently for all of them when I say that we plan to pay that debt back in full."
A dulled crack from behind announced that Bolin and Reese had taken care of the final two monsters.
"…Fair enough." Arslan answered as the rest of the squad moved in to regroup.
Annette didn't seem impressed by her answer, "The real question is this: are you dedicated enough to protecting the people relying on you that you are willing to do everything you can for them? Or are you going to let petty grudges hold you back?"
"I think you already know the answer to that, Durand."
"Good answer." Annette keyed her comm, "Eagle-Gamma, this is Dagger-Alpha. All contacts down, and we are returning to the convoy."
"Copy that, Dagger-Alpha."
Desperado leaned back in his makeshift seat atop the high-rise where he watched over the survivor convoy with his three companions. Master Sergeant Pablo '3-13' Ortega stood side-by-side with a Vacuan huntress-in-training, May Zedong, both cradling their respective sniper rifles while sweeping Eagle-Gamma's section of the ruined city for any monsters that might threaten the refugees. While Desperado didn't have the hardware to join in on their sharpshooting party, he was stationed with one of the Eagle teams along with Brawnz Ni to provide spotting support and close-range firepower in the unlikely event of an ambush. For now, though, he was enjoying the banter taking place between the two marksmen.
"That's a pretty sick rifle you've got there." Ortega commented, "I'm guessing it follows standard huntsman procedure and has some sort of melee function."
May nodded, still scanning for threats, "Got an axe blade in the stock, yeah. It's pretty handy when I need to pull myself up to a good vantage point."
"Grappling hooks are so much easier, though. I'll try to hook you up with a test run of an Icarus suit when things calm down so you can give it a go." Something caught Ortega's eye. He zeroed in on it with his scope for a moment before nudging May. "Got a pair of Ursa down by the hospital. They're not moving towards the evac route, but a pack of wolves is headed in their direction."
"Wouldn't want them to group up, now would we?" May commented as she followed Ortega's directions to locate the contacts. "Good thing neither one is an Alpha."
"Or one of those Beringel. Think we can bag a couple of bears before they know what hit 'em?"
"Depends," May answered with a sly grin, "You sure you could score a headshot at this range?"
"Only one way for you to find out." Ortega answered, matching her grin with one of his own, "I'm more worried about you, though: what kind of experience do you have drilling your target from seven blocks away?"
"You haven't seen May in combat, have you?" Brawnz chuckled, "May doesn't miss."
"Especially when I don't have a certain Nikos trying to hunt me down." May muttered, "Ready when you are."
Desperado and Brawnz watched as the two marksmen took turns with the rangefinder to double-check each others' readings. They settled in with their rifles, adjusted their equipment, and took a moment to slow their breathing and observe the movements of their marks.
"Alley oop." Both sniper rifles barked milliseconds after one another, and the two snipers watched both of the lumbering Grimm reel back as the ballistic rounds slammed into their bone plates and ripped through their skulls with explosive force.
As the lifeless bodies fell to the street and slowly dissolved, the two marksmen shared an exuberant high-five. Brawnz glanced over at Desperado. "Color me impressed. I didn't know Vale fields snipers that could pull that off."
Time for part two of why Bradford had assigned him to this outpost.
"They don't, as far as I know." Desperado answered, "We're not really Valean."
"Mistrali?" Brawnz asked, eyebrow raised, "Because you're definitely not from Vacuo, and you don't look like any Atlesian soldier I've ever seen."
Ortega shook his head with a laugh, "Why don't you two sit down and have a chat with Desperado? I can keep an eye on the roads while he explains who we really are."
"And why we're here." Desperado added, pleased to see that Ortega's comment had sparked a look of curiosity from Ni and Zedong, "Because that's really the important matter at hand. And if you're training to be huntsmen for all the right reasons, you'll want to listen carefully."
"I'm seeing smoke through the trees up ahead." Mtambe noted, "You think it's the ship?"
"Has to be." Blake answered. She'd spotted the smoke a few minutes prior (on account of her Remnant agility allowing Blake to traverse the Emerald Forest through the trees), but didn't want to say anything to her squadmate until she knew for certain that their objective was the source. Still, the damaged foliage and the occasional scrap of twisted hardware offered strong evidence to support their suspicions.
The trip through the forest had been slow. Blake had to take her time to make sure she steered her companion clear of any threats because of the heightened Grimm activity, and pulling that off with only a single arm wasn't doing her any favors, either. Mtambe's Icarus equipment would allow him to evade in a pinch, but quieter was obviously better. She'd heard several packs of Beowolves and the occasional Ursa stomping around, but nothing more dangerous as of yet. If Blake wasn't careful, however, that could change faster than she could say "Enemy contacts sighted."
The engineer looked up into the sky through the gaps in the tree cover, "No sign of the dragon, though. You said it was latched onto the ship, right?"
Blake nodded. Either the dragon had flown off before they had a chance to go on their scouting run (though Blake was sure she would have heard it), or the cruiser team had somehow pulled off a miracle and killed it. Either way, she wasn't going to complain about missing out on the 'opportunity' to go toe-to-toe with that demonic monstrosity. After another minute of navigation, the tree cover cleared away and completely confirmed that Blake and Mtambe had found what they were after. Long furrows scarred the ground reminding Blake of the typical markings of a splashed UFO. Shattered trees piled around a massive object up ahead, with the smoke Blake had seen slowly rising above the crash site.
"Gotta be it." Mtambe muttered as Blake landed on the ground next to him.
"We should approach with stealth." Blake advised, "We don't know if our guys are in control or if they failed to take out whoever turned the ship rogue in the first place."
The duo moved slowly through the trees towards the giant mess at the end of the crashway. Blake's superior hearing picked up faint sounds of movement, mutterings, and mechanical activity, though she needed to get closer to pick up on what the talkers were actually saying. Unfortunately, all the sound stopped a few seconds later.
Stay low. She signaled to Mtambe. Somehow, the people at the crash site had detected their presence. Blake stood motionless, waiting for the noise to pick up again before daring to move. Powerless to detect anything on his own, Mtambe kept his eyes on Blake and waited for her command. Both of them jumped slightly at the sound of five bullets punching into the wood next to them.
Tink tink tinktink tink.
Blake raised an eyebrow at Mtambe, but the Engineer quickly pulled out his pistol and smacked it against the tree twice.
Thunk thunk.
A face poked through the foliage seconds later, a weary smile indicating just how relieved the operative was to come across friendly contacts.
"I don't know who's out there," The soldier said, trying to scan the trees for the newcomers, "But I'm not about to complain about getting found by a couple of allies. Come on in."
"Weiss, wait."
Weiss stopped following the latest batch of refugees on their way to the edge of the Safe zone and turned around to watch Ruby stride towards her from across the street.
"I know you're not about to ask me to stay." Weiss said as Ruby took the last couple of steps towards her best friend, "Because the Ruby I know would respect my decision even if it's not the one she wants."
Ruby smiled, "It's a good thing you know me. I just wanted to say bye before you left."
"And I wanted to avoid the emotional stuff." Weiss answered with an eyeroll. Sticking with her decision to go home to her father was hard enough. Getting a tearful sendoff from Ruby would make it all but impossible.
"Not even a hug?"
Weiss sighed, "Just a quick one."
Ruby zipped into an embrace without a word and let out a happy hum when Weiss hugged her back. True to her word, Ruby only held on for a couple of seconds before letting go.
"I don't know what's going on with this whole mess, but if there's one thing I do know, it's this: nobody is more qualified to scare up some answers in Atlas than Weiss Schnee. And you can bet your butt that we're going to be dropping by your neck of the woods once we've got things sorted out around here to see what you've found and if there's anything we can do to help. You just gotta stay safe until the cavalry arrives." Ruby grinned and nudged her partner in the ribs, "That's me, by the way. I'm the cavalry."
"Yes, I figured that one out all by myself, thanks." Weiss's tone was sarcastic, but the smirk playing across her lips revealed how she really felt about getting one last dose of Ruby's humor for the forseeable future, "Same goes for you. Whoever is doing this probably isn't done with Vale just yet. If I have to wait for the cavalry, then she better damn well make sure she's coming."
The two of them grew silent, staring at each other while activity swirled all around them. Finally, Weiss thought of one more thing to ask. "Hey Ruby?"
"Hmm?"
"Would you do me a favor and keep Vahlen company? I know she can be a bit... weird sometimes, but it really helps when she's got a friend around. I know she's got Bradford and Shen, but..."
"... she's going to miss you." Ruby finished. She snapped a sharp salute, "You can count on me, and that's a promise!"
Weiss nodded, though it didn't take a mind reader to tell that she was growing distracted "That's good. Listen, I should probably get going now. I don't know how long General Ironwood is going to wait before he comes back to see if I've made up my mind or not. I don't know if having another encounter between him and Bradford is a good idea right now."
"Yeah, that makes sense." Ruby agreed, "I'm sure the General means well and is concerned about the safety of all the civilians, but something about Central just pushes his buttons. Alright. Take care, Weiss. And don't forget: I will be seeing you in Atlas."
Weiss shouldered her pack and turned to leave, but not before glancing at Ruby one final time, "I'm counting on it."
As Ruby watched her best friend fade into the crowd of refugees, Bradford joined her at the curb. They stood in silence for a minute before Bradford spoke.
"You're going to miss her, aren't you?"
Ruby snorted, "I can't possibly imagine what gave that away."
"At least she'll have backup." Bradford offered, "We're dispatching covert operatives to all three kingdoms, but I made sure to send the best to Atlas."
"Yeah, about that… aren't XCOM operatives infamously bad at the whole 'covert' part of their operations?" Ruby asked.
Bradford almost choked, "Come again?"
Ruby shrugged, "Maybe it was just me, but all I remember from the covert operations is having to bail out the spooks time and again after EXALT caught on to their shenanigans before they could call for extraction. Did they ever actually complete a mission without a hitch?"
"Oh, so it's going to be like that, is it?" Bradford asked, "Because I've got one question for you: ever heard of Iago van Doorn?"
"Who?"
"Exactly." Ruby's face told Bradford that she expected more out of an explanation, and he couldn't help but smirk, "You ever wonder why EXALT just sort of… collapsed towards the end of the war? All of those 'bungled' operations that you apparently enjoy harping on gave us enough intel to locate their HQ and their leader… and assassinate him in one, quiet black op."
Ruby grew quiet while she processed Bradford's comments before she offered the Central Officer an incredulous look, "You're telling me that The General had an evil relative that was the kingpin for Earth's greatest terrorist organization?"
"A half brother." Bradford corrected, "But yes. And Van Doorn himself was the one to pull the trigger."
"Why did I never hear about this?" Ruby demanded.
Bradford's smirk broke out into a grin. "Because the spooks are actually good at their jobs. C'mon, you've got a squad waiting for a different sort of extraction op. I suggest you get to it."
Pyrrha instinctively tried to tense up as she heard the quiet hiss of the medikit, her mind anticipating the uncomfortably cold sensation of the restorative aerosol as it contacted her skin. Instead, she felt the familiar sensation of literally nothing at all as Ren worked to patch her up as best as he could. Nora sat next to Yang and watched in silence while Jaune helped by shifting Pyrrha according to Ren's directions. Samuelson had gone up to the roof to check on some equipment he and Mtambe had set up before the latter had left with Blake on their recon operation.
After a few minutes of work, Jaune sat Pyrrha back down into a comfortable reclining position while Ren took stock of his medical supplies.
"That should help with a lot of your more mundane injuries." Ren said after he finished stowing his gear, "You had a lot of open wounds, among other things, some of which were starting to become infected. It's likely that they would have been fine once your Aura starts to heal them, but there's no sense taking unnecessary risks."
Speaking of her Aura… "And the paralysis?" Pyrrha asked.
Ren nodded. "You have some clear damage at several points along your spine. My guess is that you tore a couple of critical nerves at just the wrong spot when you fell. Vahlen will likely be able to give you a more detailed answer once we get back to the ship."
"Hopefully she can find a way to fix it, too," Pyrrha sighed, "Since it looks like my Aura doesn't feel like being particularly helpful at the moment."
"It's extremely rare, though not completely unheard of, for this to happen." Ren told her, "I've only read about a handful of instances myself. The amount of information is frustratingly scarce, but I was able to determine that they all involved catastrophic damage to the individual, which evidently shocked the Aura into inaction."
Jaune looked up, "How long did they take to recover?"
"I never found out." Ren admitted, "You would think that long-term Aura loss would be a heavily researched and documented phenomenon, but I haven't been able to find any papers, studies, or articles on the subject. Then again, it was always more of a passing curiosity than something I had a vested need in learning about."
"Maybe it was something that woman did. You said she was stupidly powerful, right? What if… I dunno… what if she sealed your Aura or something equally bullshit?"
While Jaune didn't want to entertain the implications of Yang's idea, he couldn't deny that it was one possible explanation. He'd seen his fair share of powerful fighters during the tournament, but that woman was something different entirely. Something far more sinister.
He decided it was better to let the matter rest for now, since there was nothing any of them could really do to make it better. "We'll see what Vahlen can find out. In the meantime, what about you two? You mentioned that there was some pretty serious stuff that went down underneath the tower."
"Well, we found Ozpin down there." Nora said, "He's crazy good at fighting, by the way. The two of us helped him hold off hordes of Grimm for a long time, but the headmaster was doing most of the heavy lifting."
"Why were you guys down there, anyway?" Yang asked.
"He had a lot of equipment down there, and made it very clear that it was vital we protect it. I… think it was some kind of life support for a woman in one of the machines." And before anyone asked the inevitable question about Ozpin, "Both he and the patient were taken by a woman, however. Ozpin fought with her for quite a while before she managed to subdue him, render us unconscious, and escape before we woke up."
Yang groaned, "So now we have two stupidly powerful women. Unless they're the same person fighting in two places at once."
"I don't think so." Nora said, "The woman in Ozpin's office was wearing red and using fire, right? This woman was dressed completely in black and using Grimm to fight."
Pyrrha moved on to the next obvious question, "So how did you get out? We didn't hear from you until a long time after the purple explosion destroyed the tower. I would imagine that it ruined the elevator you used to get down there."
Nora and Ren shared a look before Ren answered, "You imagined correctly. But we, uh… met someone while we were down there."
"Or something." Nora added, "Something that had a voice and was very angry at the woman who stole Ozpin. We never saw who he was, though."
Ren nodded, "At least we think that's who he was mad at. From what he said, it sounded like Ozpin and the woman know each other, and that Ozpin trusted her."
"He was really crazy, though. Thought we were working for the woman, and that she had sent us down there so he could murder us or something." Nora wiggled her finger in circles next to her ear, "Not sure how he came to that conclusion. Kinda worked in our favor, though, since he decided he would spite her by letting us get back up to the surface. Shot up some sort of supercharged grappling hook so we could climb out."
"Well that was nice of him at least." Jaune said.
Ren shook his head, "Not really. We only had five minutes before he launched enough explosives into the elevator shaft to completely collapse it."
"Oh…"
"We don't know if Ozpin knew that thing was down there, but he made no mention of it to us. But given that he knows practically everything about Beacon, I would be really surprised if he was unaware."
Ren sat down on the opposite wall from Pyrrha, "I need to rest for a while, but we do need to organize and figure out how to regroup with the rest of XCOM. I think it would be best for Jaune and Nora to assess our situation while I stay and continue to provide medical assistance for Pyrrha and Yang."
"That sounds like a good idea." Jaune said as he got up and dusted himself off, "We'll start by checking in on Sam, and then go from there."
"I should be good to go by the time you guys get something figured out." Yang added, testing the burn scars on her face and neck, "Between me and Nora, it should be easy to move Pyrrha quickly and safely."
The slightly crestfallen look on Pyrrha's face didn't escape Jaune, though he knew better than to draw attention to it. Rather, checked his equipment nodded at Nora, and the two of them left the room. The three remaining huntsmen eased into a comfortable silence and allowed themselves a chance to rest and recover.
"Sir, we have a bit of an… interesting situation at the southern barricade."
After all the bullshit from last night and this morning, Bradford was decidedly not a fan of 'interesting situations.' He looked up from the city map he was poring over in the command center and keyed his comm.
"What do you have for me?"
"A man just drove up on a yellow motorcycle and demanded to see Captain Rose and her sister. He's extremely agitated, but not belligerent. You'll probably want to come down here ASAP."
Of course. More angry people.
"I'm on my way."
Bradford walked briskly across the Safe Zone towards the southern wall. The man was most likely Taiyang, as Ruby had once explained to him that neither her mother nor Yang's were still around. One of the first things on the girls' to-do list once they had made it back to Remnant was visit their father and assure him that they were okay. Given that every radio and news station was likely tuned in for last night's disaster, Taiyang probably booked it to Vale as fast as possible to make sure they were still safe.
Still, why wouldn't he call?
Bradford was about to find out, as he caught sight of who he assumed was Taiyang once he rounded the last corner and the barricade came into view. He saw as the operatives on duty gestured in his direction, likely to explain to the man that Bradford would have the answers, and was only mildly surprised when he watched them get shoved out of the way while the newcomer stormed over to him. Well, Ruby had told Bradford that she wanted to introduce him to her dad at some point. Pity it had to happen like this.
"Where are they?" He asked, "My daughters. The men back there said you would know, so you are going to tell me exactly where I can find my little girls."
Bradford nodded, "The men back there are correct. I was Ruby's commanding officer when her team joined my division for a few weeks and-"
"That was you?" Taiyang hissed, "You're the one to blame for my daughter's-"
"Stop." Bradford said, "And pull yourself together. I will be more than happy to discuss Yang's condition with you when it is appropriate, but now is neither the time nor the place."
The man glared at him, but said nothing.
"Miss Rose has been working tirelessly here to help coordinate the Valean Recon Division's response to the crisis at hand, and she left about half an hour ago with a team to locate and extract the personnel we had dispatched to Beacon when the tower exploded. Her sister is among those likely still at Beacon, and so Ruby has a vested interest in spearheading that particular effort personally. Given that comms are down, we won't know their status until they return. However, she handpicked the team that left with her, which includes some of the best operatives I have ever had the honor of working with."
"And so what do you suggest I do?" Taiyang said, still leering at Bradford, "Sit on my ass and wait for them to maybe come back?"
After the last round of diplomatic efforts between XCOM and Ironwood, Bradford did not have the capacity for dealing with another grown man getting irrationally short with him. "I suggest you help, Mr. Xiao Long. There are a lot of people here in dire need of aid from those who have the energy and skills to do so. Remind yourself that you are an instructor for some of Remnant's finest huntsmen-in-training, I can't think of anyone more qualified to pitch in during a time when your kingdom needs you most. Both of your daughters did so -and more- without a second thought. I'd like to think that they learned their sense of honor and duty from somewhere."
Taiyang shut his eyes and took a deep breath. It may have been fatigue playing tricks with his vision, but Bradford thought he saw the tattoos on the man's arm briefly glow around the edges. Before he could ask, however, the man spoke.
"You're right. I'm just… ever since Summer…" He took another deep breath, "My girls are all I have left. If something happened to them…"
"They saved my life and those of my operatives more times than I can count." Bradford said, "The men and women working with your daughters will fight like hellions to make sure no harm comes to them. That I can promise."
Bradford turned to head back to Mission Control and gestured for Taiyang to follow him. "Until they return, why don't we get you up to speed on everything happening around here? And while we're at it, I should probably explain to you the true nature of my division."
Nicho looked up from his work in the mech bay at the sound of heavy footsteps entering the room to see Poncho walk in.
"How are we looking, Sergeant?"
"Belladonna left a few minutes ago to get back to Beacon and check on her partner." Poncho reported, "We would have dispatched an escort to go with her, but she understands that we're a bit short-staffed around here. Even agreed to Samuelson's request to stay with the ship and help where he can."
The Lieutenant nodded, "We'll need it. This thing is in really bad shape. I don't even know if Ironwood will be able to get her back at this point, honestly."
With the amount of damage she sustained from the crash landing, it would be impossible to assemble the work crew necessary to get the ship airworthy without drawing the attention of the Grimm. The Scouts had already reported a few minor incursions nearby, but they managed to dispatch the wolves quietly. If something bigger came wandering over and needed the squad's full firepower to put down…
Poncho continued with his report, "Tinoco's team finished their eval of the propulsion system. It's… theoretically salvageable, assuming we either had a way to repair the damage to the grav crystals or we found ourselves a fresh supply. And even then, we don't have a way to transport it."
There was a large, Amity-shaped solution to the first problem, but Poncho had a point about the second one. Maybe Bradford could have a couple of MECs dispatched to their position once Nicho regained contact with Central. Until then, however, the ship had plenty of other issues that needed to be fixed in the meantime. The mech bay had proven to be a godsend. Much of the trashed hardware on the ship would have stayed that way without access to the machinery and tooling Nicho's team had found. It didn't take very long to tinker with some of the damaged equipment and get it back online. Once they had access to a couple of mills, welding supplies, and even electrical equipment, the engineering corps was back in business. With his past experience as a machinist, Nicho had assigned himself to the task of supplying the rest of his team with replacement equipment as they worked to restore the ship.
"Have we finished mapping out the ship yet?"
Poncho laughed, "With a ship this big? We've identified and marked all of the major rooms, but Volt keeps finding new surprises. One of the men posted to guard our resident murderer found a warden's office tucked away behind a couple of the cells. Figured out a way to break in and discovered a cache of rifles and weapons-grade Dust."
Interesting. One of the teams had found the munitions stores for the ship-mounted weapons early on. While they couldn't exactly make much use out of those for the time being, small arms sounded a lot more useful.
Nicho glanced back at the mill he'd left idle while he listened to Poncho's report. "If we've got a ways to go, then I better get back to work."
Annette, Ruby discovered, was more correct than she probably realized in her assessment of Grimm overrunning Beacon. While the target density wasn't so great that they couldn't navigate through the school at all, the roving Beowolves, Creeps, and Ursa forced Ruby's extraction squad to tread very lightly and take roundabout paths to avoid detection. The school was big enough to allow for it, and Ruby had asked their Engineer to pack a couple of decoy noisemakers as a last resort, but the situation still slowed down their advance to an undesirable pace.
Several occasions called for a silent assassination of a lone Beowolf blocking their path, and Orryn Crohm was happy to oblige. He'd approached one of the XCOM operatives during the recovery effort and asked if he could help. As the Lance Corporal explained it, Orryn had some guilt over 'playing a part' in the fall of Beacon, as he was Coco's opponent when she kicked off the panic with her minigun. So when Ruby told Bradford that she would need some silent firepower for her infiltration op, Central pointed her towards the dagger dancer. And after seeing him ambush the lone Beowolf in such a way that not even a single pained howl escaped its throat, Ruby could see why Bradford made his suggestion. Orryn's Semblance, Ruby learned, allowed him to bond his Aura to a weapon or two and let him manipulate them remotely after throwing them. He'd settled on a pair of daggers as his weapons of choice, which made him perfect for taking out a single target from a distance without making any noise.
The group ducked into one of the buildings from a back alley and took the opportunity to stop for an equipment check while the Scouts assessed the path ahead. Moments after Ruby sat down to shut her eyes for a moment, her pocket buzzed, and a small ding accompanied the notification that one of her teammates had just come into scroll-to-scroll range. She held up a hand and signaled for her squad to stay hunkered down and keep watch while Ruby pulled the small device out of her pocket and checked her team roster.
"It's Blake." She whispered to Otter, "And I'd bet a week's worth of kitchen duty that Yang isn't far off."
She tapped on Blake's face and shot off a quick text. The rest of her team kept their eyes on the doorway into the building and the road outside as pack after pack of wandering Grimm trundled past.
Blake, it's Ruby.
Ruby watched as her scroll lit up again, though it seemed to take Blake a while to actually respond.
I can see that. Are you in Beacon, or did Shen find a new fix for the signal issue?
In Beacon. Comms are still down, unfortunately. We're here to find you guys and get you out.
That's good. We've got several wounded, and Grimm keep pouring into the school.
We noticed that, too. Where are you?
Comm station.
We're on our way.
"We've got a location." Ruby whispered to Otter, "How are the Scouts?"
"On their way back." The Lieutenant answered, "They identified several clear routes through the school."
Good. "Well, we don't need to go to the heart of Beacon, but we're headed for the abandoned dormitories."
Fonseca clicked his comm piece several times, and Ruby heard the Scouts respond with an assortment of their own dots and dashes before the Lieutenant nodded. "They're waiting for us out in the alley."
The team regrouped and moved towards their objective with renewed purpose. Orryn took point with the Scouts, eliminating any isolated contacts before the rest of the extraction squad even had a chance to catch up. Ruby desperately wanted to blow off some steam by killing a few targets with Crescent, but she knew that the attention it could draw wouldn't be worth it. Those elephants looked a lot nastier up close, and some of the Ursa Majors they passed had enough scars and plating to show that they'd seen more than a few serious fights. Ruby kept Blake appraised of their progress as they advanced towards the comm station, and Blake in turn sent her updates on what had transpired at Beacon.
Given that the Beacon teams had apparently taken on two of the agents behind the attack, Ruby was surprised that the casualties weren't worse than reported. Blake grew quiet when Ruby delivered the news that contact was completely lost with the Temple Ship (probably because Pyrrha was in desperate need of medical attention), but it sounded like XCOM's problems wouldn't be growing exponentially worse from the news coming in on Beacon's end. In fact, Blake's report that the cruiser crew had survived would probably bring some relief to Bradford, and Ruby was looking forward to returning to base with her friends to deliver that particular bit of information.
We're sending Ren out to join you and escort you to the comms.
It didn't take long for JNPR's resident ninja to find the extraction team, and Ruby was hardly surprised when he announced his arrival by slitting the throats of a Beowolf pair preparing to ambush the main group. Ruby flashed a grin at her friend as the Scout detail doubled back to regroup, but Ren simply held a finger up to his lips and led the group into a nearby building. Once they were off the streets, Ren pulled Ruby into a light hug.
"It's good to see you, Captain." He said, finally returning Ruby's smile.
"You too, Ren. But aren't we going to the dorms? I know we haven't exactly been in class for a while, but I'm pretty sure I'd remember the old lecture hall."
Ren nodded as he continued to guide the team up the stairs and through the building. "Correct. But our group has been putting together methods of discretely traveling from building to building to keep off of the streets as much as possible. The comm center is only a few buildings over."
They climbed the stairs and exited onto the rooftop. For once, the destruction caused by the battle came in handy, as damage to the lecture hall had caused a portion of the structure to tilt and rest against its neighbor. Ruby saw what Ren had meant by travel methods when she noticed lumber and rope keeping the collapsed concrete stable, and wondered how long his team had been working on developing travel routes through Beacon. The group entered the adjoining building, moved through the quiet, dusty hallway to the other side, and saw a rope system spanning the gap to the comm dormitory.
"So who had the honor of jumping across first?" Ruby asked.
"I did." Ren answered, "And it's probably more accurate to say that I was launched across."
Otter suppressed a snort, "Occupational hazard of being Nora's partner, I think."
"You're not wrong."
Ruby hooked herself to the zipline and rode down to the dormitory. While professionalism demanded that she wait for the rest of her squad to make the crossing, it took all of Ruby's willpower to not run down the hallway and plow into her waiting sister. Once zipped in after the last operative, however, all bets were off. A trail of rose petals drifted to the floor in Ruby's wake. She practically flew through the hall, raced to the stairs, tried every floor until she saw one with an open door, skidded to a halt in front of the opening, and looked inside.
Both Yang and Pyrrha looked up from their seats on the far wall of the room at the sudden disturbance, and curiosity gave way to joy when they recognized Ruby.
"So are you guys ready to get out of here, or what?"
Ironwood looked up at the sound of his security guard knocking on the open door frame to his makeshift office.
"Miss Schnee is here to see you, sir."
"Weiss Schnee?" Ironwood asked. He knew that Winter never needed to have her arrival announced before she walked in to discuss matters.
"Yes sir. Sorry, sir."
The General nodded and waited as the guard ducked back out. Weiss entered the room a moment later, and Ironwood could see hesitancy and uncertainty written all over her face and body language. She still carried herself like a Schnee, but years of working with Winter had given Ironwood some insight into the mannerisms, etiquette, and general behavior of the women in Jacques's family. And given how often James had spent time with Weiss trying to convince her to study at his academy, it would be embarrassing to think that he didn't know the young lady well enough to tell when she was nervous.
"A pleasure to see you again, Miss Schnee." He greeted, adopting a friendly tone to help put Weiss at ease, "I take it you are assisting with Atlas's evacuation efforts?"
Weiss nodded, "Of course. It's my honor as a huntress and my duty as a Schnee to help those in need. I escorted the latest wave of civilians to the muster point, and I am pleased to inform you that no casualties were suffered under my watch."
Ironwood smiled as Weiss's familiar voice of confidence returned once she started speaking of her accomplishments. "You are truly Winter's sister, Weiss. The people of Atlas, and Remnant as a whole, thank you for your service."
A hint of unease flashed across Weiss's face once more, "Speaking of Atlas, General…"
"I trust you have considered my words carefully." Ironwood answered. He suspected that this was the root of Weiss's troubles. It was clear as day that she had built some deep bonds with the other huntresses on her team, and Ironwood had no doubt that Weiss would rather be with the friends she has spent the better part of a year forming a close bond with instead of revisiting the… strained relationship with her father.
"I have." Weiss answered, "For a long time, actually. But I came to the decision that it would be best for me to come back to Atlas."
Ironwood raised an eyebrow, "And your Bradford is okay with this?"
"I do not belong to Bradford." Weiss retorted, her tone growing icy, "And I do not need his permission to make decisions for myself. The Captain has become a trusted friend of mine, and he likewise trusts that any decision I make is in the best interest of Remnant first, myself second, and my allies third."
"A good answer." Ironwood conceded. He hadn't actually meant anything malicious by his jab, though he was curious to see the extent of the loyalty Bradford commanded from the students. He was glad to see that the answer was less than he'd feared.
"There is one thing I would like to request, however." Weiss said, "While I didn't know Penny until a few weeks ago, she fought hard alongside my team and saved my life on more than one occasion when we were trapped with the Valean Recon Division. I… think it would be helpful for Dr. Polendina to have someone who knows his daughter and can share stories about her to deliver the copy that Bradford gave to you. I owe it to Penny to help with her father's grief, and this is the best way I can think of."
Ironwood processed Weiss's words for a few moments. The offer had caught him off-guard, as he didn't consider the possibility that Penny had grown close to anyone other than Ruby Rose. Still, he could hear the sincerity in Weiss's voice, and nothing was coming to mind as a reason for rejecting her request. "That would be very helpful, actually. Dr. Polendina has become very keen on seeing Penny as soon as possible, but I need to remain here to oversee the safe evacuation of our citizens -and those of the other Kingdoms- before it would be appropriate for me to return to Atlas."
The General reached under his desk and pulled out a small, armored box and set it on the table. "Take this to the Doctor. It is locked, but he knows how to open it. Are you leaving soon?"
Weiss nodded as she picked up the lockbox. "I was planning to once I was finished here. Winter has already agreed to accompany me on the journey."
"Excellent. Then I suppose I should bid you farewell and wish you a safe journey. Until we meet again, Miss Schnee."
"Thank you, General." Weiss curtsied and departed with Penny, and Ironwood returned to his paperwork as soon as the room was empty.