Or, as I like to call it:
Winter Schnee and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
Technically night, since the pre-breach events take place during the night leading into the early dawn hours, but you get the point right?
On a completely unrelated side note, I seem to have completely lost the Arkos audience with the last chapter, even though I thought I definitely lost them since I posted Chapter 6 in like…MARCH and definitively stated that I didn't like Arkos. So actually kudos to you –if you're still reading since the two of you who said you were stopping probably aren't- for holding on so steadfastly to my story until Chapter 28 hoping that Princess Pyrrha of Mistral was going to be a thing.
It won't be...
...
I'm sorry?
On that somber note, do enjoy.
A cold wind swept over the lonely ruins of a long abandoned expansion. Once teeming with the lives of tens of thousands of people, now a mere ghostly shell of a city, its empty apartments and half torn office buildings bearing witness to humanity's failure. Now the desolate relics of what once stood as a symbol of progress were now home only to small packs of roving Grimm, and perhaps slightly more recently, the potential presence of a criminal organization and its terrorist companions.
Oh, and also plus one Atlesian Army recon team, chopped to provide support for one Atlesian Specialist.
"Do you see anything yet?" One Atlesian soldier asked another soldier sitting at the window looking over the ruins with a pair of binoculars.
"I got a whole lot of nothing man." Gunnery Sergeant Sandy 'Disciple 02' Taylor answered, "I don't think there's anything but ruins out here…" And then he spied a black shape coming into view, "Along with the occasional black thing with teeth and claws." The beowolf wandered around rather aimlessly, neither searching for anything nor meaning to go anywhere.
"Well keep looking Taylor," Staff Sergeant Drake 'Disciple 01' Seamus answered, "The intelligence we got was supposed to be fresh."
"Let's hope it hasn't become rotten yet." Sandy sighed as Drake turned away, "It's seriously tempting to just shoot that thing." He patted a sniper rifle leaning against the wall, "One less Grimm to worry about."
"Do that," a voice spoke sharply as a figure came up the stairs, "And you'll the drag the whole pack down on top of us." Winter 'Frost' Schnee said, now out of her formal uniform and wearing far more practical combat fatigues though she had ditched the armor, she never felt comfortable with it.
"Just saying ma'am." Sandy grunted as he returned to his post, Winter shot him a dark look as she turned back to Drake.
"Sergeant Seamus, where are Privates Miller and Baker?" Winter asked tersely.
"They went to scout the surrounding area, see if there was anything they could find." Drake answered as he walked over to a nearby table and checked the maps over. Winter followed suit, laid out in front of her was a map of the old Mountain Glenn, with their position marked out clearly. It was merely an old and half-ruined apartment complex that nevertheless, still presented a commanding view of the surrounding area of half-constructed houses and ruined buildings.
A pretty good vantage point all things considered.
Their primary purpose here was just reconnaissance, it had only been a couple of hours since they had inserted into the mostly dead ruins, navigating between the Grimm had proven tricky, but in the end the group of five had made it to a safe spot. So now all that remained was to find a trace of the White Fang's presence.
If they could find it at least.
So far no luck, the day was already beginning to end, the sun's last rays were sinking into the horizon, and soon night would be upon them, and yet so far nothing to show for their efforts.
Patience Winter, patience, Winter took a deep breath and let it out, Good things come to those who wait for them. It had only been a day after all, missions like these could last entire weeks, they ought to have been lucky the weather had been mild and was forecast to continue being mild, back in Atlas sub-zero temperatures were the norm.
"Hmm." She hummed to herself, thinking of what their next move ought to be, obviously it would not do to simply wait and let the White Fang come to them since they had no idea where they operated from. She shook her head, hopefully this would a short operation, once it was complete she could hand over the intel and let someone else take charge of the attack and subsequent mopping up.
Where shall we start looking for them though? Winter looked over the map, the entire Mountain Glenn expansion was impressively big, and of course it had to be since it was meant to house several tens of thousands of people. In the short amount of time that she had had to prep for the operation, she had done her best to read up on the history of Mountain Glenn, in the process learning of the rather horrifying eventual fate of its inhabitants.
Still, they were of no concern now; the dead would lie where they fell, it was up to the living to carry on for them, and in this case…
The underground section of the expansion. She pointedly noted in her head, it had been the one piece of information that had stuck out to her, the entire population driven underground to escape Grimm attacks, only to be sealed in when the Grimm broke through from surrounding caverns. The abandoned underground was the perfect place for a bunch of criminals to hide in, the only problem was how she was going to find an entrance in. With the original tunnel from Vale completely sealed off from that end, she would have to look for the exit on this end.
That was assuming it to, had not been sealed off.
From the map she had, she could see that the original station was quite a ways off and placed deep within the heart of the expansion itself, which she figured would be a good place to start looking for the White Fang.
Sighing, she took a step back and rubbed her forehead.
"Both of you stay here, I'll just be going for a short walk, maintain contact at all times." The two exchanged a looked, but nodded as Winter exited the room and began making her way out of the apartment.
Stepping out onto the road, she inhaled sharply the cool night air and looked around her, staring at the empty buildings around her.
She walked slowly but carefully, ensuring that she was always aware of her surroundings and keeping one hand right at the side of her sword, ready to lash out at the first thing that threatened her. Grimm activity in this area was not felt to be particularly high compared to some of the places that Winter had been to, all the same, it paid to be careful.
As Winter moved about, between deserted alleyways, through streets and around corners all the time keeping her head on a swivel, unbeknownst to her, a dark figure with a pair of blue eyes watched and followed her every movement from the shadows.
A loud sneeze startled Winter and her hand immediately went to the grip of her sword, her eyes flicked left and right, trying to sieve out the noise amidst the ambience.
"Bless you." A voice came from a short distance away; Winter crept up to a corner and peered around it carefully.
"I swear it's the fucking dust, it keeps messing with my sinus!" A short distance away, there stood four men, fully garbed in the White Fang uniform with mask and everything, they were gathered at the sidewalk of the road, apparently taking a smoke break, letting out tall, long puffs of smoke, two of them were sitting down while the other two stood up with their rifles still at the ready.
Well that was sooner than I expected. Winter smirked to herself as she began hatching a plan of action, a quartet of these grunts would be no trouble whatsoever to a highly-proficient Specialist like her, she only needed one alive to interrogate him for information.
So transfixed was Winter on observing the quartet of White Fang troopers that she failed to notice the dark figure creeping up behind her. The figure was clearly that of a woman, just as tall as Winter in height, on her head sat a Stetsons hat along with a pair of dust goggles, she wore a black, long-sleeved coat that hung down to her knees that was closed with a zip, a brown belt going around the coat at her waist on which sat a holster containing a single pistol, a pair of fingerless gloves on either hand, finishing the look was a pair of sleek, dark pants tucked into knee-high boots.
The woman crept right up behind Winter, "Whatcha looking at Winnie?" The woman asked, peeking over Winter's shoulder.
"White Fang, four of them, fifty meters in the open, I…" And then a thought just occurred to Winter. In an instant she drew her sabre and lashed out behind her, the woman jumped back, causing the blow to connect with the wall, creating a loud screeching sound as the blade scraped against the concrete, she drew back to retaliate.
"Aaaaannnnddd you just gave away our position." The woman shook her head and shot Winter a disapproving look.
The Specialist balked when she realised who it was, "You?!" She hissed out.
"Hey what was that?!" Winter's head flicked back as the very audible *click* of safeties disengaging could be heard.
"Told ya so." The woman shrugged.
"What're you doing here?" Winter hissed as she backed up against the wall with the other woman.
"Who's there?! Come out where we can see you!" The White Fang trooper yelled.
"I came to look for my 100,000 lien." The woman whispered with no hint of danger.
"Your 100,000-?" Winter was confused for a moment before she knocked her head back into the wall and shut her eyes, she was currently conducting an operation against the White Fang and had neither the time or the inclination to deal with this, "Listen I'm on an op and I don't have time to deal with this now."
"It's just 100,000," The woman scoffed, "the SDC isn't going to miss it when they make millions on the back of cheap labour." She rolled her eyes.
"The deal was for you to protect our refinery," Winter growled, "Not annihilate half of it!"
"Hey I took the blame for that one!" The woman protested, "and gee, maybe next time you should take a look at your goddamn safety protocols, who the fuck puts fire dust in thin wooden crates and then stacks them together." The woman hissed back, "You're just asking for it."
"Ok look," Winter stared directly into the other woman's eyes, "There's a White Fang patrol out there and they're coming over here, so do you want to continue doing this all night or-" Before she could finish, the other woman pushed her to one side and walked out into the open with her hands in the air.
"Ok you caught me!" The woman shouted at the White Fang troopers who tensed up considerably, keeping their rifles aimed at her.
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" One snarled.
"I'm a rogue huntress and I'm investigating your activities." The rogue huntress answered, hearing the word 'huntress' made the troopers even more tense, they visibly shook in fear, knowing that they were way out of their depth, the woman grinned on seeing this and lowered her arms, "I'm not technically getting paid for it since I'm classified a rogue and all, but I've still got a minor bone to pick with you lot."
"Keep your hands where we can see them!" A different one spoke up this time, his finger was already on the trigger.
"Now that we're in agreement as to who is on superior ground here, I'm going to give you animals two choices," The woman said, holding up two fingers, "One is you tell me what you're doing here, and I'll let you go. The other is that you don't, I kill you, and I find out myself." She lowered the hand and let it rest on her hip, "So what's it going to be?"
The four White Fang grunts exchanged uneasy looks, and then the lead one yelled and lifted his rifle…
A series of four gunshots echoed out into the night, so quickly that one might have mistaken it for a single drawn out shot, all four White Fang grunts dropped dead.
The woman had not even give any of them a chance at all, before the lead grunts finger was even able to apply any pressure to his rifle's trigger, all four of them received a black hole opened up on each of their foreheads with blood pouring out as they fell to the ground. The woman smirked and holstered her pistol walking up to stand on top of one of them.
"Stupid choice." She grinned sardonically as she knelt down to examine their weapons, picking up one's sword and giving it a few practice swings, "Hmm, not half bad I suppose," She took it and its sheath and set it on her belt before moving on to the assault rifles they had been carrying.
She clicked her tongue as she detached the magazine and inspected the rifle's inner workings.
"Workable, I think I can use this," She began searching them for extra ammunition, stocking them into a pouch that she clipped onto her thigh. She turned around as Winter began walking up to her with a glare on her face.
"What was that for?" Winter scowled, the rogue huntress titled her head questioningly.
"What? You've seen my quick-draw before." She shrugged.
"I meant we could've interrogated them to find out what they were doing here." She shot her best glare that was completely ignored, "Now we've lost our only lead."
"Unlikely that they were going to give up that information," The rogue huntress shrugged, "True believers would rather die first; I for one intend to give them that privilege." She shot a rather devious smirk at the Specialist who merely looked on in disapproval.
"Fair enough, but we could've used that information!" Winter threw her arms out, "Or would you like to wander around in circles for the next few days wondering where on Remnant they've been hiding all this time?!"
Before the rogue could respond, they were loudly interrupted, "Ma'am!" Winter turned her head to see her both Privates 'Disciple 03' Miller and 'Disciple 04' Baker standing with their rifles raised to their shoulders, pointed threateningly at the rogue huntress.
Winter immediately held out one hand to stop them, "At ease men, she's…" Winter turned back to the rogue huntress who looked at her as if to say 'why are you giving me that look?'
"Well are you?" Winter pressed, annoyed at her companion.
"Am I what?"
"Are you with us or not?"
"Depends," The rogue shrugged, "Am I getting my 100,000 lien back? I'll charge you an additional amount on top of that for my help." She held out one hand and wiggled her fingers; Winter gave her an incredulous look, and then shook her head and rubbed her forehead.
"Oh I forgot, only you could charge people when we're in the middle of a situation." Winter sardonically replied.
The rogue huntress turned to look left, and then she turned to look right, and then walked a short distance away to the side, before turning to look back at Winter, "I don't see a situation anywhere but here." She stated simply with a smirk on her face.
Winter's face contorted in anger, "Why you-!" She was cut off when she felt the ground disappear beneath her feet, "Wha-?!" She cried out as she fell for a split second before she found herself hanging in mid-air. She looked up and found the rogue huntress holding onto her arms above her head as her legs dangled freely.
"Watch your step." The rogue smirked as she pulled Winter up and onto her feet, the Specialist dusted herself off with a muttered thanks.
"Ma'am, are you alright?" Miller ran up to her, she waved her hand.
"Just got caught off guard, that's all." Winter shook it off and knelt down, peering into the sinkhole, "Huh…I guess our intel was correct, if I'm not wrong, then this must be the underground section of the Mountain Glenn expansion right?" She looked at the rogue huntress who nodded in return.
"The one the populace ran to for shelter after Grimm attacks became too much on the surface," The rogue huntress stroked her chin in quiet contemplation, "It's the perfect hideout, a massive tomb for countless thousands sealed off from the main city, no one would even begin to look for a criminal organisation here."
"Alright then," Winter stood up and looked at the others, "Miller, Baker, get our equipment, we'll prepare to climb down." She then tapped the button on her mic, "Disciple 01, do you read me?" She talked into it.
"Loud and clear ma'am." Drake answered.
"Scan the area for anymore patrols and report back to me with the other two, Iwill stay here with our new companion." She turned to look at the rogue huntress who peered over the edge and into the darkness below.
"Fancy seeing you in command now." The rogue huntress laughed. She jumped away as the edge she was standing on began to crumble and fall away into the hole. "That's the way the cookie crumbles," She laughed lightly and stepped away, Winter followed suit, backing away to ensure that she did not end up falling into another hole.
"Why exactly are you here of all places?" Winter questioned, "I thought you went straight back to Armorica after what happened in Vacuo."
"Well maybe I didn't," The rogue huntress shrugged, "Maybe I decided to look around in my old stomping grounds to see what's what."
"You expect me to believe that?" Winter raised an eyebrow, "You know as well as anyone that you're still classified a rogue huntress on every mission board on Remnant-"
"With a bounty of 50,000 lien for anyone bringing me in alive." The rogue laughed again, "Sadly, no one ever thinks to look for me in my homeland, and when they do look for me when I'm out and about? I usually just put one in their skulls." She tapped her pistol at her side.
"You're not carrying your revolver this time," Winter noted in surprise.
"That's right, I'm in anti-personnel mode, so I left the Grimm gear back home." The rogue grinned as she took a seat on the sidewalk, crossing her legs as she did so.
They fell into silence.
"So about my 100,000 lien-"
"Oh you're utterly impossible!" Winter exasperatedly growled, "You can't be seriously suggesting that I pay you for blowing up one of the SDC's dust refineries and the countless lives lost in that attack!"
"You were going to pay me for it," The rogue pointed out.
"Like I already said," Winter ground her teeth as she stood looming over the seated woman, stabbing a finger in her direction, "The job was for you to protect it from a potential White Fang sabotage attempt, not destroy it and render it unusable for months!"
The rogue threw her hands out, "Hey at least I killed all the saboteurs for you! Your security team was useless as fuck! And like I said," She looked up at Winter from beneath her hat, "You need to review your safety practices so that fire dust doesn't end up stacked in wooden crates."
Winter backed off with another angry growl, but remained and stood beside her companion, with a sigh she finally decided to sit down.
"So…your highness-"
The air turned cold, "I'm pretty damn sure I told you never to call me that," The rogue huntress growled, "I was never a princess, and since they kinda-sorta disowned me, I'm really not technically one anymore."
"Ok then…Ms. Arc-"
"Not that either." A harsh snap came.
Winter rolled her eyes, "Alright then…Annie." She glowered at the person in question.
"Much better." Princess Anne –better known as Annie Arc-, firstborn child of Duke Jacques and Duchess Viola grinned widely like a maniac, "Now what can I do for you Winnie?" Her eyes narrowed slyly at Winter's grimace from her nickname.
"So what the hell are you doing here anyway?" Winter asked, "You get a job against the White Fang or something?" The Specialist scoffed.
"Maybe~?" Annie cocked an eyebrow, "What's it to you?" She smirked.
"Nothing." Came the curt reply, "Just checking to make sure you're not working against me, have to be careful knowing you." Winter shot her a suspicious look.
Annie rolled her eyes, "Come now Winnie, you know I would never work with the White Fang, not after what they did to my family." Even though she seemed completely ambivalent, Winter knew better than to test her.
"I don't know," Winter narrowed her eyes and glared at Annie, "You're not well-known to me for having scruples, not since you first told me that you didn't care for collateral damage."
"That's right," Annie nodded, "Everything that I am paid to do is fine, whether by knife or gun or fist, I just-"
"Don't usually attack children," Winter interrupted, "but everyone else is fair game isn't it? If anyone gets in your line of fire then that's-"
"Their fault." Annie finished with a smile, "Not my problem if you run right past me while I'm unloading lead on the target." She tapped her hands on the rifle she was now carrying, wondering if she had time to field strip it properly and make sure that it was properly working.
Ah fuck it, why not? She shrugged as she lay it out in front of her and began taking it apart, she did not at the moment possess a cleaning kit or anything, but still at least it paid to know what condition it was in. Winter chose to ignore her and hugged her legs to her chest as Annie carefully laid the bolt and the barrel out on the ground in front of her.
Hmm, it's not rusty at least, piston appears to be good, She checked slowly, Barrel could use a cleaning though and good oiling, and the receiver has not been finished properly. She stuck her tongue out and licked her upper lip, Winter watched the gunslinger so to work with slow, careful precision.
She looked back up into the sky and considered her rather difficult history together with the mercenary princess.
"Drop your weapon!" Winter yelled, brandishing her sword dangerously, "And maybe I won't take your head." She ground her teeth.
"Go to hell." Annie spat as she had an Atlesian soldier in a choke with a pistol pointed at his head, "Drop your sword and I won't paint his brains and yours all over the wall.
That had been a pretty bad misunderstanding on one Winter's first missions as a Specialist for the Atlesian Military, the mercenary had gotten caught up in a military operation to root out a suspected White Fang cell hiding out in a long abandoned mining site. She had apparently taken a job from some other shady character to wipe the cell out to a man and bring the leader to him personally for some reason or the other that Winter could not remember.
In the end she managed to compromise, even though high command wanted the leader of the cell for intelligence purposes, in the end the mercenary took away the leader to somewhere while the Specialist managed to get all the other material that was found in the hideout, hard drives and scrolls full of data.
A couple of days later, the leader turned up dead, executed with a single gunshot to the head.
It was only later after Winter had done some of her own digging around that she found out about the rogue huntress and what she had done back in Vale to get her declared as such. Winter had been disgusted, a lone huntress had gone completely bonkers over the course of a single night and torn the VPD a whole new one, back then she had resolved to bring her to justice the next time they had met.
It was not to be though, even though they had a few other run-ins, once she had been hired –hired, Winter had checked and there was no mission on the mission boards for it- to help escort a caravan while Winter had been ordered to perform SND on a known Grimm gathering in the same area, and then another one where Winter had been on a training exercise while Annie had apparently gotten lost…or that had been the excuse anyway. She was never able to catch the damn rogue even if Annie managed to exchange scroll numbers with her.
"It seems like you and I just keep on bumping into each other." Annie laughed.
"Oh for gods' sake…" Winter growled beneath her breath.
Through all that, Winter had developed a begrudging respect for the rogue huntress, she was incredibly talented, unmatched in her marksmanship and brutal in hand-to-hand combat, more than capable of surviving on her own for long periods of time in the harsh wilderness, also somehow very good at manipulating aura, and that was all without any known semblance of her own. The only thing stopping her from being the model huntress?
Her sociopathic disregard for others.
Despite all that, due to her rogue status and ability to be held accountable for anything that went horribly wrong, Winter ended up going to her when a report had come in suggesting that the White Fang were targeting one of the SDC's major refinery complexes in Vacuo. Since it was in another Kingdom her own hands had been tied, but an offer of 100,000 lien plus reimbursement of travel costs and the rogue huntress/princess/mercenary had been out of her castle and in Vacuo within days.
Of course, the mercenary then decided that the best way to accomplish her job was to blow the saboteurs, the workers, the security team, and half the refinery into orbit.
"You're quiet tonight," Her voice cheekily came out, Winter looked back at her and noticed that the rifle had been reassembled, "Not planning on taking my head tonight?" She turned and smirked.
"No," Winter waved her off with a disgusted look, "I don't have time now, the White Fang have a major operation in the area and I need to find out what it is." Winter paused, "And you still haven't told me what you're doing here."
Annie sighed, "A Royal Protector apparently did some digging, found out some stuff, and since I'm so expendable, here I am." She explained as she took out her pistol, slid the cartridge out, worked the slide to eject the chambered round and began loading bullets by hand into the cartridge from a pouch on her waist.
"I met your brother," Winter spoke up.
"Yeah I saw you both on TV, now that was some hilarious shit." The snicker was sharp and mocking, "How's he doing?" She re-inserted the cartridge and holstered her pistol.
"Fine? At any rate he's on track to not be you."
"Not hard to not be me." There was not a hint of remorse for any of her past actions in the low chuckle.
"You know you could really stand to care a bit more." Winter frowned, as Annie looked at her weirdly, "He is your family after all."
The mood shifted, and not for the better, Winter's words seemed to tick Annie off at any rate as one eyebrow twitched, the mercenary gunslinger looked away, "What happened to Catherine was a mistake, and it's true…" She seemed to seethe and Winter noticed her clenching one fist, "I should've been there for my younger sister, but on the other hand…" She tapped one finger, "If my only brother thinks wasting four years of his life in that rotten place is a good idea, who the hell am I to stop him?" She scoffed.
"Hey!" Winter groused, "He's doing good work in Beacon, I can tell his presence is appreciated by both faculty and students, you could at least stand to be proud of that." Winter had only really learned off Annie's true identity when she had gotten to know Janice, who in turn had not given a favourable impression of the mercenary. But since Annie had returned to the Royal Enclaves in the aftermath of the attack, she had thought that perhaps some part of her was redeemable through her family.
"Stand to be proud of the fact that he is wasting his time hiding there?" Annie snapped back, "If he wanted to hide, he should've just asked to join the Royal Legion as a nameless soldier. If he wanted out of the Royal Enclaves…" Annie stopped right there and went still before shaking her head, "Forget it, why the hell am I even discussing this with you?"
Winter rolled her eyes, "And I thought we bonded so well over the fact that we hated the White Fang for all it had done to us back in Atlas."
"We'll bond better when you fork over the money you owe me." Annie replied, Winter growled again.
"Not. Happening." Winter flatly stated.
"Alright then." Annie replied in voice just as deadpan as Winter's, "Just wanted to tell you that if those guys get in my line of fire they'll be just as dead as the White Fang." She clicked her tongue.
"Don't worry so much, if you try anything funny I'll just aim to take your head as usual." Winter shot back.
"Agreed." Annie nodded, and then turned her head to the side, "Looks like your pals are here," She stood up and dusted herself off, Winter followed suit. The four-man team had brought their weapons along with all their gear.
"You know if things start getting dicey down there…" Annie commented as they set about tying the rope, "You guys sure you wanna run around with all that gear?"
"You should probably be worrying more about yourself ma'am," Sandy smirked, "I don't see you getting loaded for a fight, want me to lend you my gun?" He held out his sniper rifle, Annie rolled her eyes.
"I'm all I need to fight." She returned the smirk as Winter tied a knot at the end of the rope while Miller and Baker held it, Winter prepared to descend first, taking a set of night-vision binoculars with her as she went. "I'll alert you over comms if it's clear." Winter ordered.
"Understood ma'am," Miller nodded.
"Ok, and just to be clear," Winter turned to Annie, "If you're gonna stick with us, you're coming down next."
"Why?" Annie cocked an eyebrow.
"So I can keep an eye on you," Winter explained as she began lowering herself down with Miller and Baker slowly giving line to her.
The Specialist found herself descending into an inky blackness, most of the light came from the hole that she was descending through, as she continued being lowered, her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, allowing her to take in the sight. She was in an absolutely immense cavern, all around her she could see similar ruins and abandoned buildings littering the entire area, stalactites hung down from the roof of the cavern.
So this is the underground complex… Winter had to admit it was quite impressive, and if she had not been on a military operation she might have taken the time to explore the ruins a little and take a few pictures for memorabilia purposes. The entire area was very dark, and yet off in the distance, Winter could just barely make out a series of dim glows where some figures could be seen moving about.
Looks like a pretty major encampment alright, now it's time to see what they're doing. Looking down, she found herself being gently lowered onto the rooftop of a tall building sitting against the wall of the cavern.
Alright, time to get to work. She dropped lightly down onto the rooftop, "Ok it's clear, come on down." she broke out her binoculars and zoomed in on the activity in the distance, she could just make out-
*THUMP*
Winter jumped as she felt the floor beneath her shudder as a loud, dull noise sounded off right behind her. She jumped away with her sword drawn, and found Annie in a crouching position, from the sound and the way she was in, Winter immediately guessed that the mercenary had simply jumped into the hole.
"What're you doing?" Winter growled as Annie stood up, "You're going to give us away at this rate!" She scolded, even though she knew it was a hopeless battle against the mercenary princess.
"That's your problem not mine." Annie shrugged, "Whoa…" She muttered and took in the sights for herself, "Man if this place weren't infested with Grimm this would make a pretty nice tourist attraction." She whistled as she peered over the edge to the ground below.
"A tomb for countless thousands makes a nice tourist attraction to you?" Winter could only give the mercenary a disgusted look and prepared to lift the binoculars to her face again.
"Why not? The ruins make for some pretty good scenery." Shooting a glance about her, Winter had to admit she was right in that department; there was a strange aesthetic appeal to seeing all of the crumbling, collapsed, torn open and leaning buildings, rubble and debris piles littered the streets below, the paint was peeling in large sections. The rusted metal of iron rebar protruded out from the many torn sections, the air was still and quiet, there was no wind, just a dead silence.
The remains of a broken dream of man.
"Regardless of that," Winter shook her head, "We-whoa!" She cried out in surprise as Annie pulled her to the side with her scroll in front of them.
"Say cheese!" She pressed a button, capturing Winter's stunned face alongside her smiling one with the rest of the complex in the background.
"Hey! Who goes there?" A voice made the two spin around, there stood two more White Fang troopers, the door behind them thrown wide open, "Who the hell are you?" They demanded as they raised their rifles.
"Fools." Annie hissed and went for her pistol, Winter grabbed her arm and stopped her, "What're you-?" That momentary distraction was all Winter needed.
Before either of the White Fang troopers could respond, the Specialist had activated a glyph below her, she shot forward in a flash, drawing her sword and separating it in mid-flight as she hurtled towards the opposing force.
They did not stand a chance.
Both blades tore right through the throats of the White Fang troopers; they did not even exhibit a death gurgle as they fell to the floor with a gentle thud. Winter swiped off the blood from both of her blades before she reconnected them and sheathed it at her side, blood was already pooling on the floor. Annie squinted at the Specialist as she walked up to investigate the two corpses.
"Just wanted the kill for yourself huh?" She smirked.
Winter shook her head, "Your gun doesn't have a suppressor, a gunshot here is going to be heard on the other side of the cavern, and I'm not going to let you just give away our position just like that." Annie cocked her head back but said nothing as she began searching over one of the bodies, "What're you doing?" Winter asked.
"Let me see if I can…aha!" Annie held up a scroll triumphantly, "Let's see if we can listen in on their comms." Winter pursed her lip and nodded, that was a sound tactical choice. At this moment, Sandy had landed, followed by Drake.
"Wow, that's some shit right there." Sandy noted.
"I don't think I wanna know the crap that must've gone down here." Drake agreed.
"Enemy encampment is just over there," Winter pointed out, "Wait for both Miller and Baker, Annie and I will sweep the lower floors of the building, find a spot to set up, this is where our mission really begins fellas." She ordered and began making her way to the door, "Hey come on stop stalling!" She grabbed Annie by the arm and roughly pulled her along.
The mercenary seemed not to actually notice because she remained fixated on the scroll, thumbing something on it, only stopping once Winter had walked past the door and entered the stairwell.
"-nd bring the*ZZZZT*e's asking *ZZZZT* and hurry it up! We don't have all day!" The scroll crackled to life.
"Got it!" Annie grinned triumphantly as she pocketed the scroll.
"Not bad," Winter had to admit, maybe the mercenary would be a good addition to their force as they descended to the topmost floor from the roof, "We'll sweep opposite sides of the building," Winter gestured to the two doors at the bottom of the first flight of stairs, "meet back on the ground floor?" Annie nodded as Winter went through one door while she went through the other.
The building turned out to be clear of anymore White Fang troopers, and Winter met Annie at the bottom of the stairwell.
Annie was listening in on the White Fang comms, "HQ to alpha squad, send over."
"That's their HQ." Annie noted.
"Roger, central surface access point is clear over," The voice came over the scroll.
"Understood, continue sweep."
"Bravo calling HQ over."
"HQ to Bravo, send it."
"I'm seeing a lot of Grimm activity on the southern surface perimeter, but other than that area is clear over."
"Roger, take care Bravo."
"Charlie to HQ over,"
"The patrols are slowly reporting in," Annie pocketed the scroll, "Sooner or later someone's going to notice that two of said patrols are quite dead." She smirked.
"Then I suppose we'd better get to work," Winter thumbed her mic, "Disciple 01, you guys settled in yet?"
"Affirmative, we're set up on the top floor we've got a perfect view of the encampment from here." Drake replied.
"Ok, I'll be right up soon, out." Winter turned away as Annie began walking out, "Where're you going?"
"I'm gonna go see what's what over there of course," Annie jerked her thumb over in the direction of the encampment.
"This is just a recon mission, we're not supposed to be infiltrating." Winter corrected.
"Says you," Annie rolled her eyes, "I don't know if you've noticed but we're not really on the same team here." The mercenary gestured back and forth between her and Winter.
Winter growled angrily, "Let me guess, you're going to go over there, shoot anyone who looks at you funny, blow everything up that you don't like, and then call it a day." Winter deadpanned.
"Wow you're fucking psychic alright." The eye roll just made Winter boil.
"Don't be an idiot! Even you would have a problem with that many hostiles!" The Specialist wagged her finger in the mercenary's face angrily, "There's no need for a fight here, we can leave that to the regular army."
"Whatever, you wanna stay here go ahead, I'm going over there." Annie shouldered her rifle and moved off, leaving Winter behind to fume in silence.
It shouldn't be a problem; we're far away enough that anything she does won't blow our cover, and we can still extract easily enough, on the other hand… Winter let her body sag and dropped her head, I don't want to end up letting her destroy anything useful, plus there is the fact that I don't really want to have to explain to the General how a recon mission ended up becoming a search and destroy mission or her family that she's dead or… Winter paused, realizing there was a bit of cognitive dissonance going on in her head.
Argh! That woman is so infuriating! She grumbled internally as she wracked her brains for a solution, before deciding that it would be best if she followed the mercenary, also it might provide for a closer look than from afar, plus since the mercenary had the scroll…
Alright Winter, this is just a minor change in operational parameters, nothing to get upset about…except the post-mission report… Winter sighed in exasperation and quickly followed in the direction of the mercenary with a loud growl under her breath.
"Disciple 01, do you read me?" She spoke into her mic.
"Loud and clear Frost."
"Change of plans, I'm going over there, provide armed overwatch for me and Annie." She ordered tersely.
"Are you sure about this? Orders were not to engage-"
"I'm not engaging, I'm just going to take a closer look," Winter corrected while trying not to scoff at herself, "do I have your support?"
"…Yes ma'am, Disciple 01 out."
She found Annie strolling in the open without a care in the world, looking left and right eagerly like a child in a theme park, seemingly more interested in taking in the sights and sounds around her than in the fact that they were currently deep in enemy territory with little support beyond the recon team that Winter had brought along with her. Winter hurriedly caught up to her, walking right beside her while trying to remain alert to her surroundings, and then Annie started whistling a rather jaunty tune.
"Will you take this seriously for even a minute?" Exasperation poured from Winter.
"What do I have to fear from a bunch of poorly-organized rabble? What do you have to fear in any case?" Annie stopped and looked at Winter as the Specialist came up alongside the mercenary.
"That arrogance of yours will get you killed princess," Winter stabbed a finger on Annie's chest, "don't underestimate the White Fang, surely even you have heard of their leader? We don't know if he's in the area in person." Winter explained, "And we both know he has a bone to pick with both of our families." Winter was doing her best to urge caution on the part of her companion, she seemed to be failing though.
Annie raised a curious eyebrow, "You mean Adam Taurus?" Winter nodded and placed her hands on her hips, "That's alright…" Annie unsheathed the White Fang sword and held it in front of her, eyeing the blade carefully, "If he wants to find trouble with me, then I'll just kill him like so many others." The little smile on her face would have been terrifying for a normal person.
Winter's face contorted in anger, "Don't let your pride cloud your judgement now!" She scolded, "He's a dangerous man that even the most experienced hunters would have trouble handling!" Annie laughed and kicked at a small stone on the road, sending it a fair distance down.
"The most experienced hunters had trouble grabbing at my 50,000 lien head," She sighed merrily and looked up at the cavern ceiling, "In my mind…I have already killed that man in a thousand ways." She looked at Winter out of the corner of her eye, the Specialist grimaced as Annie snickered.
"Alright, just this once I'll play by your rules, so what's up first?" Winter was surprised when the mood immediately shifted, Annie seemed rather a lot more agreeable all of a sudden. The Specialist tilted her head one way, and then the other, trying to figure out what the mercenary was trying to do.
She's probably trying to fuck with me again, Winter rubbed her forehead, she could feel a headache coming on.
"We do this quietly alright? We go in there, grab what information we can get, listen in on what we can and then we hightail it right back out." Winter jerked her thumb back in the direction of the apartment building, "Understood?" She was expecting Annie to blow her off.
Surprisingly, the mercenary merely answered with, "Ok." Winter blinked and took a step back uncertainly, eyeing the smile on Annie's face.
Yeah, she's definitely fucking with me, Winter grunted, "Ok then, first-"
"Disciple 02 to Frost," Sandy's voice came over the mic, "Heads up, you've got four hostiles coming around the corner of the office block beside you." Winter shot Annie a look, the mercenary simply shrugged.
"Copy that," Winter ground her jaw a little, "We'll do this my way, quietly." Winter forcibly emphasized the last word.
"So do we eliminate or let them pass?" Annie asked as she looked around the corner.
"We let them pass, follow me." Winter headed to the building, ducking low behind the wall of the building with Annie right behind her. The Specialist peeked over the wall and through a broken window, watching the patrol's torchlights pass over them as they approached closer and closer around the corner.
"Through the building." Winter whispered, her companion nodded, and once the torchlights passed over them again they hopped over the wall and landed lightly on their feet, dropping low again and hugging the adjacent wall as the patrol passed by and moved on.
"Let's find some higher ground nearer the site, I want to scout it out properly," Winter said, Annie responded affirmatively and the two exited the building on the adjacent side, and dashed across the street, ducking into the opposite building just before the patrol looked behind them. They found themselves in what appeared to be the remains of another office building, they continued moving forward, gingerly opening doors and grimacing at every creak and crack they made.
Winter halted as she heard a rumble in the distance.
She turned to Annie, "Did you hear that?" She whispered.
Annie nodded, "Heavy machinery, we're getting close." The mercenary shouldered her rifle.
"Sandy, Drake can you see anything?" Winter asked over the mic.
"Yes ma'am, it looks like we found the stolen prototypes, I see two right at the encampment, they're using it for heavy lift."
Huh, looks like this might pay off after all. Winter thought to herself.
They continued in this manner for quite some time, ducking and weaving their way through the ruins carefully, making their way past former living quarters now caked with dust, half-destroyed office spaces with old terminals still at their places, dodging patrols at every turn. Winter had assumed that the mercenary would lose her patience and start gunning down everything in sight, but miraculously she held her tongue and followed the Specialist's lead as they navigated to the encampment.
The two ended up in a small three-storey building overlooking the encampment, making their way up to the second floor, they stopped and went stock still as they heard voices.
"Man I hate that Torchwick guy, all he ever does it boss us around. Do we really gotta work with him?" One voice said.
"It's what the boss says, and what he says…goes remember?"
"I just can't believe Adam Taurus of all people agreed to this, working with the human scumbags?"
Both Winter and Annie exchanged a glance, so that man really was in the area.
"Hey if he says to work with them than I'll suck it up, besides you really wanna be on the receiving end of him?"
"… no…but I mean…"
"Well if it's no than just shut up and do your job Burns, it's not that hard anyway." The two continued bantering back and forth even as Winter looked at them from the staircase, the both of them were standing at the far end of the room, apparently watching over the encampment from their own spot.
Winter looked at Annie as the latter uncovered a long knife and nodded with a cruel smile on her face, "One on the right," Winter whispered.
They crept up to the pair of troopers slowly, controlling their breathing, measuring their footsteps until they were right behind. And then both made their move, Winter slammed one hand over the mouth of her target and sent her sword right through his back, Annie was slightly more brutal, targeting the throat, regardless both sentries fell dead in an instant and the two lowered them slowly to the floor.
Winter immediately crouched by the window overlooking the encampment.
"I think they're getting suspicious now…" Annie tapped the scroll she had plucked off the White Fang trooper, "We might not have long before someone finds out." Winter nodded in acknowledgement and peered out the window.
The encampment was set in a large, mostly open area that was positively bustling with activity, White Fang troopers milled about all over the place in much the same way that Atlesian soldiers milled about on their base. As she looked over the place, the very first thing that caught her eye was the Atlesian Paladin-290 prototype carrying large cargo crates while being directed by another trooper while others watched.
Those are our prototypes you terrorist animals… Winter narrowed her eyes.
"That's a lot of activity…" Annie noted, there were many other crates stacked in tall piles lying about, "It's almost like they're preparing for a war."
"They probably are." Winter ground her teeth as she watched the prototype robot got about its work, a short distance away she could see a full length train with multiple railcars that the White Fang was loading boxes onto, "That railway can only lead into the city itself, but what're they planning?" Winter stroked her chin, "They can't possibly intend to invade with the Atlesian Military here."
"Now who's being arrogant huh Winnie?" Annie mocked, but Winter ignored her as they continued their quiet observation.
"…What're you hiding?" And then she noticed a tall man in a bowler hat with a cane and a white coat exiting one of the railcars, and her eyes lit up, "That's Roman Torchwick!" She exclaimed quietly.
"Who?" Annie asked.
"Bowler hat, white coat, redhead, first railcar on the left."
"I see him." Both watched as Roman began conversing with another White Fang trooper.
"Dammit, if only we had a way to listen in on the conversation from over here." Winter cursed, she watched as another pair of troopers began loading up a rather large object onto another railcar.
"You wanna get closer?"
"That'd be a little dangerous, I think we should leave and report back, we don't have the resources to take on all of them now, plus we have no idea what they could be planning." Winter shook her head and turned back, Annie pulled her back by her shoulder with a glare on her face, "What?" Winter slapped it off with an annoyed expression.
"We're already here, let's just get closer, after all didn't you come here to find out what they were doing?" Annie chastised, "Besides that's your robot isn't it? That can't possibly be something the animals created all on their own."
Winter furrowed her brow, "You just want an excuse to shoot someone don't you?"
"While I admit my trigger finger is getting itchy, it's not like there's a lot of them, plus I'm pretty sure you and I could take the lot of 'em easily." Winter looked very skeptical.
"My orders are not to engage the enemy unless I have to," She dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand.
"Not even try and sabotage the robots to make your own military's life easier?"
"No."
"Come on Winnie, you take the grunts and the goons, I'll take the mooks and the henchmen." Annie pleaded.
"No, and what the hell does that even mean?"
"What? Don't tell me you don't know the difference between grunts, goons, mooks and henchmen- no you know what? Nevermind, you take left side I'll take the right."
"I have my orders Annie."
Annie shrugged in response, "Well I guess mine are different than yours then." And then she put one foot onto the windowsill, Winter's eyes went wide.
"What're you-" The Specialist had no time to finish her sentence as the mercenary jumped out of the window, landing easily on her feet right in front of the encampment, being so close to the White Fang she was immediately spotted.
"Hey! Who the hell-" The trooper was cut off by a burst of lead tearing into his body; he dropped dead on the spot.
The whole encampment was immediately alerted.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Winter shouted futilely as Annie ignored her and ran off to continue her one-woman war on the White Fang, ducking between stacks and crates as she did, Winter let out a growl that was part anger part exasperation.
"Disciple 01 to Frost, what just-" Winter immediately cut Drake off.
"Frost to Disciple team, provide armed overwatch! I'm going in; shoot any White Fang you see! That's an order!" So saying she leapt out of the window without waiting for a response, using a glyph to launch herself in midair after the runaway mercenary, who was gunning down troopers left and right with hyper-accurate burst firing as the White Fang struggled to respond to the surprise attack.
Gunfire echoed all around as battle was joined between Atlas plus one mercenary and the White Fang. Winter let loose a string of very un-ladylike language as she deflected the wild gunfire from one trooper, accelerated with a glyph and impaled the trooper on her sword. Ripping it out she launched herself into the air with another glyph to dodge more gunfire from a larger group of troopers coming at her from the side, a second glyph in the air fired her like a meteor right into their midst. The Specialist was a veritable whirlwind of blades as she smashed into them, cleanly wiping out the group in close combat, cutting them to pieces with militant efficiency
She switched her attention back, the train was beginning to pull out of the area, heading for a tunnel a short distance away with Annie chasing after it at fullspeed as more White Fang troopers tried –and failed- to stop her as her rifle ran out of ammo and she switched to her pistol.
"Frost! You've got more incoming all around you!" Drake's voice crackled over the radio, Winter looked to the side just in time to see a spurt of blood erupt from a trooper's head and he fell to the ground.
"Cover me! I'm going for the train!" Winter ordered and raced ahead as several White Fang troopers raced towards her from the front, their swords raised high. One of them dropped as his head almost literally exploded, another took a high-caliber rifle round to the chest, Winter took out the last two with quick swipes and continued on.
The train was pulling out quickly, Annie was not nearly fast enough to catch it and Winter was just too far away if she continued running like this, on the other hand…
"If you're going to do something so stupid…" Winter ground her teeth as she powered up a series of glyphs, "At least do it properly!" she felt the entire world seemed to blur around her as her speed increased rapidly. Her target was Annie, who was running along the tracks after the quickly disappearing train a short distance in front.
"Heads up! Arms out!" Winter yelled, Annie barely had time to flick her head back before the Atlesian Specialist crashed into the mercenary at full speed. Winter did not stop, with one arm around Annie's waist, she continued powering up more glyphs along the tracks, hurtling herself forward faster and faster until with one more glyph, she jumped and landed on the roof of the first car, both stumbling forward to catch themselves.
"Frost to Disciple team, exfil' out and call for extraction, alert General Ironwood to the situation!" Winter ordered into her mic.
"Understood, good luck ma'am, Disciple 01 out." Drake answered and the mic went dark as the train entered the tunnel.
"I thought you weren't gonna fight?" Annie asked as she reloaded both her pistol and rifle and cocked it.
"I didn't want your highness' pretty ass getting killed on my watch," Winter sardonically said.
"Fair enough, so what's-" She was cutoff when a panel on the roof opened in front of them, a trooper burst out with his rifle readied. Before he could fire though a single shot from Annie's rifle toppled him back into the hole. As he did so Winter made her move, dashing forward and hurling herself into the hole, slamming both blades into one trooper on the way down, ripping them out and using a glyph to close with the remainder on one side. Meanwhile, Annie swung down right behind Winter and opened up on the other side of the railcar, massacring the other half of the car as Winter finished up on her side.
"Now what do we have here?" Annie gestured to a strange device sitting in the middle of the railcar, it had a long, cylindrical shape and appeared to have multiple tubes of dust mounted on it.
Winter walked over to examine it herself, "Looks like this is where all that dust that criminal was stealing was going into." She noted to herself ran a finger over one of the tubes.
Not having been entirely up to date on events, Annie could only say, "What?"
"Nothing," Winter shook her head, "It seems to be some kind of-" She was soundly cut off when the device suddenly lit up and started beeping, a countdown timer appeared on a black screen.
"Bomb." Annie blandly finished, "Well to the next car then!" She quickly ran to the front, Winter keeping pace behind, they exited and quickly hopped onto the other side. Winter turning to decouple the railcar behind her, to her surprise she found the lever moving itself and soon, they were leaving the railcar behind.
"Hey!" She exclaimed, "What on Remnant was-"
*BOOM*
A massive explosion rocked the tunnel and sent a shockwave that made the two stumble a little, the train shook from the sheer force of the blast, the car with the bomb disintegrated into complete nothingness in a conflagration of flame with shrapnel flying every which way in the aftermath. Winter instinctively summoned a glyph in front of them that deflected the pieces away harmlessly from the two.
"Wow they must really hate us." Annie chuckled while Winter cocked her head curiously.
"Why'd the car detach itself?" She looked at the mercenary for an answer, Annie merely shrugged.
"Who cares?" She turned away and towards the door, "Let's keep going." With a yelp, she viciously kicked the door of the car down. Winter ran in first whirling her blades as a hailstorm of gunfire was directed right at them, she closed rapidly and cut the first two troopers to pieces as Annie laid down a withering barrage of fire. It took scant moments for the two to clear out the second car.
"Got another bomb here." Annie noted the device in the middle of the car.
"We should keep moving, we have to stop the train." Winter noted and continued moving out and onto the next car. To her surprise, once again the car separated on its own and detonated away from them. Once again a glyph came up and shielded the two from the shower or debris as the train continued rolling onward.
"Somethings up here, they wouldn't just detonate them for no reason." Winter furrowed her brow, and then her eyes widened.
"I think we got our answer," Annie let loose a dark chuckle as the two watched numerous Grimm begin pouring into the tunnel, chasing after the train. They could see beowolves, ursas, King taijitus, the whole lot of them were inbound right on them.
"So this is the White Fang's endgame!" Winter bared her teeth in a snarl, "Blowing the tunnels will release the Grimm from the mountains' deep cave systems. They're going to cause a breach right in the heart of Vale!"
"Then we'd better hurry the fuck up!" Annie agreed as she gave the railcar door a savage kick that sent it flying off of its hinges. They stormed into the car to find it completely empty and devoid of any White Fang troopers, there did not appear to be any bomb inside this particular car. Instead the interior was stacked with boxes, Winter kicked one off the side and sent it crashing to the ground, spilling out a stack of rifles.
"Weapons." She hissed.
"Explosives too." Annie opened another and found several dust grenades inside; she took a few for herself with a coy smirk on her face.
"How long have those accursed animals been planning this? And right under the noses of every damn idiot in Vale!" Winter seethed and cursed loudly, to her this was a horrible intelligence failure on every single level possible from Vale to Atlas, if General Ironwood had not gotten his source right then and there. The White Fang could have enacted a massacre on the city without anyone knowing about it until it was too late. She clenched both fists angrily; someone was going to pay when she got back to-
"Watch it!" Her thoughts were cut off by Annie shouting, Winter found herself roughly pulled backwards. Just in time to dodge…an umbrella? She looked up and found herself looking into the eyes of a strange girl standing on the opposite side of the car, she had hair that was pink on one side and brown on the other, with her eyes reflecting the opposite sides of hair color. The entire outfit looked like someone decided one day that they wanted to be an ice cream and dressed accordingly in white, pink and brown.
And before Winter could do anything she found herself getting pushed forward by the mercenary, "Hey what-?"
"You deal with the henchmen," Annie remarked, "I'm going ahead." So saying she punched out a panel on top and hopped out of it onto the top of the train. Winter had no time to deliver some sort of rebuttal as she suddenly found herself being attacked by a blade extending from the umbrella. She dodged and jumped backwards to give herself space as her own blades were unsheathed.
The girl was much shorter than her, and yet judging by the smirk on her face, she radiated complete confidence and clearly had no qualms about going up against an Atlesian Specialist.
"Alright then," Winter shot the girl her own smirk as she readied herself.
As the Specialist began her battle, on top of the car the mercenary raced forward into her own battle as multiple Atlesian Paladin's jumped onto the top of the train and turned to look at her with their guns pointed right at her.
Annie skidded to a halt for a moment before a cruel smile appeared on her face, "Now this is more like it." She unsheathed her stolen sword and charged straight ahead as the first opened up a hailstorm of lead right onto her, the narrow path of the train prevented more than one form firing on her as she closed the distance, whirling her single blade as she dashed forward to deflect multiple bullets, experience allowing her to determine the most dangerous shots to be deflected in an instant.
A few bullets grazed her, one having the audacity to impact the fleshy part of the side of her torso, the pain was no stranger to a mercenary like her though, and she simply pushed right through it as she did a barrel roll, yanking a grenade from her belt, flicking the ring out as she did.
Just to get the perfect timing… One more dive forward and she chucked the grenade, allowing it explode right as it impacted one of the Paladin's legs. The explosion was enough to unbalance it, forcing it to halt its fire and allowing Annie to close, focusing all of her aura into her left hand, she slammed her fist right into middle of the Paladin, breaching the cockpit.
Hmm? So it's a manned machine? She tore the cover off to find a White Fang trooper sitting inside, apparently paralyzed with fear. He had just enough time to let out a terrified cry before the mercenary shut him up by slamming her sword through his chest.
He gurgled once and his whole body quivered before he went limp.
She ripped the sword out and hopped over the Paladin as it fell off the train to face the next one.
Meanwhile, Winter dueled the strange girl to a standstill, each effortlessly parrying and dodging blows with great agility before standing back to gauge each other.
Need to be careful, she's obviously very good at this. Winter grit her teeth, Don't get angry, just focus on the target and let Annie handle the train. The girl continued smirking at her, and it was driving Winter up a wall, neither had introduced their semblances into the fight yet. Winter wanted to save it first.
On the other hand, am I being too cautious? She charged forward again, the girl let her come lashing out as Winter entered striking range. The Specialist locked one blade with the girl's own while maneuvering the other around to strike, the girl broke contact, dodged under the attack and made to swipe Winter's legs out, Winter jumped and brought both blades down simultaneously, slamming into the floor as the girl rolled away and got back up.
This is going nowhere, at this rate…ah fuck it, With the curse in her head, Winter slammed her main blade onto the floor, using her summoning glyph, she almost smirked when she saw the girl's eyes widen.
Yes, this is what you get for facing a Schnee criminal scum, Winter felt her aura well up inside her, focusing on the flock of small nevermores she had once eliminated in an SND mission, drawing them out of her and into reality.
With a hum, a flock of mini-white nevermores materialized around her, the girl seemed to frown, but did not budge as Winter sent all of them right at the girl at the same time. The Specialist watched as the summons hurtled towards the girl, wondering what she was going to do, she held her breath for a moment as they impacted, turning into steam with the sound of glass shattering, and when the steam had cleared.
The girl had vanished into thin air.
Winter was immediately on guard, checking all around her, she would not put it past the girl to have some kind of invisibility or cloaking semblance, the Specialist whipped around, expecting a sudden attack from the rear. And yet nothing of note happened.
What's going on? Some kind of trick? And then a sudden lurch caught Winter off balance and she spun around to face the front of the traincar.
That bitch must've detached it! Winter swore and ran for the front of the traincar as she could feel it slow down. There was no way in hell she was going to give up just like that, throwing caution to the wind she burst through the door, just in time to get greeted by the flaming wreckage of an Atlesian Paladin as it fell off the top of the next traincar and onto the tracks right in front of Winter. The Specialist reacted quickly, jumping off the traincar and onto a glyph, and following along until she was able to propel herself onto the deck of the next car, she turned to watch as the one she was previously in was derailed by the wreckage and crashed in the tunnel.
Simultaneously cursing and thanking the mercenary for her work in ensuring that the prototypes would be kept out of the White Fang's hands while almost wounding the Specialist in the course of action, Winter threw open the door to the next railcar and…
Like something out of a cheap B-movie horror flick, there stood a man similar to most of the troopers that Winter had faced up until now, except the mask that he wore was much more distinguished and notable compared to the other troopers, his upper arms were bare exposing large and taut muscles, plus he carried a chainsaw at his side.
Winter did not so much as flinch as he started up his weapon.
"Finally…" The man seemed to grin from behind his mask, Winter judged him to be someone special, seeing as he wielded a chainsaw compared to the other grunts, "I get to kill a Schnee today."
Winter returned with a smirk of her own as she levelled her blades at him, "You're welcome to try." She hissed.
They charged simultaneously, the chainsaw clashing with Winter's main blade. They broke apart and the man lunged forward swinging his chainsaw back and forth as Winter backed up to give herself space as he rapidly closed the distance again and again. Winter watched one blow go by, and at the exact moment she struck, rolling past under his horizontal blow and slashing out his legs as she did.
He cried out, and lashed out, she jumped back again as he stood up snarling.
His aura has been unlocked, that slash would've crippled him otherwise, She had aimed for his hamstrings, but clearly that was not going to work.
"You're going to pay for that!" He roared and charged again; this time Winter did not avoid it. As he brought down his chainsaw again, she parried it with one blade and struck his arm with the other blade, disarming him, and making the chainsaw clatter to the ground noisily. He howled in pain again but she did not let up, lashing out with one foot, she kicked him right in his stomach, sending him sprawling away. With a flick of a wrist, she generated a glyph underneath him as well as under herself, slamming her blades back into one and holding it in front of her, she rocketed herself forward as the man was propelled towards her.
A sickening squelch echoed through the confines of the car.
Winter did not bat an eyelid as the man was impaled right through the centre of his torso on her sword, his blood started to drip down the blood and onto the guard and handle, staining the whole thing red. He seemed to take a moment to comprehend his situation and flailed about futilely for a moment or two.
"Damn…Schnee…!" He dropped his chainsaw and tried to reach out, almost as if to grab her. Winter frowned, she exerted on her sword downwards, forcing the man to his knees, she then lifted one leg, put it to his face and ripped the sword out with a gut-wrenching sound while kicking him away.
His body fell to the ground and did not move.
Winter exhaled sharply, swiping off her sword and sheathing it, she had wasted enough time fooling around with both the girl and this man. She needed to catch up with Annie, who she presumed was already on the engine itself and probably working on stopping the train at that very moment. With that thought in mind, she quickly made her way to the front of the car and through the door open, the sounds of rapid gunfire echoed out around her, she looked up just in time to see a dark shadow pass over her and onto the roof of the next car as tracer fire arced overhead.
I guess we're keeping pace, alright then, Winter smirked as she entered the next car to be greeted by bowler hat wearing criminal, the two glared at each other as she closed the door behind her.
"Roman Torchwick." She stated flatly.
"So you're the woman who's been slicing up all of my men," He groused, "An Atlesian Specialist huh?" He tipped his hat, "Can't say I'm completely surprised, how did you manage to find me?" He asked as he readied his cane.
"We have our ways," Winter smiled, a loud metallic clanking noise sounded and something seemed to drop off the roof of the car, Winter assumed that the final prototype had been defeated. Roman growled and bared his teeth, apparently reaching the same conclusion that she did.
"Seems like you two have really made a mess of things," He lifted his cane and backed away slowly, Winter however noticed one of the panels on the roof behind him opening and lowered her sword continuing to smile all the time.
"The game is up Torchwick," The Specialist cast him a smug smile, "You're not going anywhere at this rate, surrender now and I might be able to guarantee some level of fair treatment for you."
"You're off your rocker if you think I'm just going to surrender without a fight, the game isn't up until it's up Specialist, so I wouldn't count your chickens before they hatched." He tried to return the smile, but was visibly faltering.
"Oh so cliché," Winter snickered, "Are you going to obnoxious me to death?"
"Why you-" Roman was interrupted as Annie dropped down behind him, he spun around "Wha-?" The mercenary wrapped one arm around his neck and held a pistol to his head with the other.
"Nighty-night!" She grinned.
"Wait!" Winter called out, stopping the mercenary, "I could use him later, we need to focus on stopping the train." Annie shot her a look.
"You sure about that?" Annie held her pistol close to his head as Roman grabbed futilely at the arm choking him, "This piece of crap is only going to make life more difficult for you down the road, I promise this will be quick." Roman seemed to swallow nervously when she said that.
"He's going to make life easier for us with the intel he provides us with." Winter commanded, "Now let him go."
"Y-yeah that's right, I'm a…I'm a…I can be a pretty useful guy hehe, you don't need to kill me now…" Roman chuckled nervously as Annie pushed the gun-barrel into his head. She seemed to reconsider her stance though, and slowly let her arm down, Roman helped her by almost literally tearing it away and backing off.
"Alright now-" He did not get much further than that, Annie lashed out, bashing him with her pistol. As he stumbled away she grabbed a hold of his collar and hurled him into the side of the railcar, he collapsed to the floor, with the very last image in his mind being a boot aimed right at his skull.
And then he was out cold.
"Was that really necessary?" Winter complained as Annie rolled her eyes. The duo made their way to the front of the train. Entering the engine room, they found the entire place thrashed like someone had gone fully-automatic with an assault rifle. The control panel and most of the levers had been destroyed and wrecked.
"What about the emergency brakes?" Annie asked as Winter pulled on a few levers futilely,
"Nothing's working! We'd better get up top!" Winter kicked the console in frustration and stormed out, they would not be stopping the train from here. They hopped up onto the roof of the engine and peered ahead, just making out some kind of large obstruction ahead, a wall that seemed to stretch from the ceiling to the floor and completely sealed off the tunnel.
"What's that?" Winter pointed out, "Some kind of barrier?"
"If I'm not wrong, that barrier was built to seal off the tunnel from the Grimm!" Annie shouted, "I don't think it'll stand a speeding train though!"
Dammit! We're not going to make it?! Winter looked at Annie with a horrified expression; they were going to burst into Vale with a horde of Grimm right behind them. The mercenary seemed to acknowledge the expression on Winter's face with a small shrug.
"Eh, shit's fucked and life sucks, what're you gonna do about it?" She seemed remarkably blasé about the possibility of a breach, "Can't have everything."
"So what do we do now?" The wall was coming up on them closer and closer.
"Brace for impact?" The way Annie said it made it sound like it was some kind of suggestion, nevertheless Winter immediately summoned a glyph to protect them as the train impacted the wall at full tilt. Despite the glyph's protection, Winter felt herself get thrown forward, her vision spun all around her as the train blasted right through the wall in a shower of debris, she hit her head on something and everything went blurry and dark.
The specialist had no idea how much time had passed when her vision slowly came into focus, she was dimly aware of a muffled siren blaring in the distance and a heavy weight on top of her that was pinning her down on her stomach. She struggled to look up through bleary eyes, a dark figure was stumbling about and seemingly shaking its head, the figure turned to her and quickly ran over, as Winter's eyes slowly readjusted, Annie came into view.
"Come on Winnie!" Annie shouted as she grabbed the chunk of concrete pinning Winter and pulled the dazed Specialist to her feet, "On your feet Specialist! The Grimm are all over us!" She tugged furiously with one hand as she held her rifle at the ready.
As she staggered to her feet slowly with her head spinning from the impact, Winter wondered how on Remnant she had ended up in this situation. It had started out as her planning out and executing a simple reconnaissance mission, and now that 'simple reconnaissance mission' had managed to escalate into a full blown crisis that was now rapidly pouring Grimm directly into the city of Vale itself. In Atlesian military parlance, such a situation was generally termed 'a clusterfuck'.
That she was going to be responsible for.
Still, there was hope as the mercenary pulled her to safety, running while screaming incoherently at random civilians, or so she thought at least, if it was going to be her 'clusterfuck' of a situation…she certainly was not going to allow it to turn into something FUBAR. That would probably entail the destruction of the entire Kingdom and the loss of between a fifth and a quarter of Remnant's human population. She hoped Disciple team had managed to get away and alert the General, that way maybe; just maybe everyone could get out of this with a minimum of life lost.
Then again, as Winter finally recovered her senses fully and turned to face the tunnel that was now a short distance away, the sun began to rise over the tops of buildings, illuminating the horde of Grimm beginning to pour into the very heart of Vale itself.
"This is going to be a long day…" She muttered, watching as the snarling, hissing, howling, baying forms overtaking the nearest civilians too close to make a run for it and tearing them to bloody pieces in a matter of seconds, screams erupted all around, chaos reigned as Annie spun on a heel and began firing into the approaching mass of teeth and claws, dropping several beowolves at a time as a dozen more took their place.
She supposed she would be lucky if she did not get court-martialled or something.
The mercenary and the specialist stood alone, the former firing and reloading with lightning speed, dropping several more Grimm as the latter separated her blades and got into a battle-ready stance. Both wore grim expressions on their faces, contrasting with the expressions of the terrified civilians running past them as the horde surged forward, crashing into buildings, rushing into different streets and wiping out everyone in their path.
Weiss…I'm sorry, Winter's last thought before an Ursa came upon her and she lashed out with both blades.
As both women engaged the Grimm in a futile battle to delay them with whatever they had, in the skies above Vale, a team of trainees could only stare in abject horror at the ground beneath them.
"What is that?" Pyrrha could only stare in muted horror as Grimm began pouring into the city from the gaping tunnel like a black swarm slowly enveloping everything in its path, from where they were high up in the sky, she could barely make out small specks getting overrun by the horde surging through the tunnel.
"Oh…god…" Ren's eyes were wide in fear as the Team watched the dark tide tear into the city block by block.
"There…there's so many people down there…" Nora whispered.
A loud snarl jolted them all out of their thoughts, they turned to find their leader, brows heavily creased, nostrils flared, lower jaw grinding against his upper jaw.
"It's happening…" He hissed as he banged his fist loudly against the bulkhead, "It's happening again!" He growled angrily and strode towards the cockpit in front, nearly tearing the door open with his bare hands.
"Pilot!" He yelled, "Take us down!" He ordered.
"Hang on!" The pilot replied, "We're trying to find a safe place to land!" He looked at his co-pilot, "C'mon man!"
"There!" The co-pilot shouted, "That empty space! Two hundred meters in front!"
Jaune snapped his head upwards and his eyes widened as a black shape approached in midair.
"I can't see it!" The pilot shouted back, "I can't see-"
"Look out!" Jaune cried out, too little too late.
A rather large nevermore, smaller than the one encountered at initiation yet still sizable, smashed through the glass windshield of the cockpit from the front, the co-pilot had no time to react as the Grimm's beak exploded through the windshield and impaled him right through his chest, his hand inadvertently jerked his stick back, sending the bullhead spinning wildly as Jaune was thrown backwards.
Alarms blared loudly.
Warnings were screamed.
Sparks from damaged instruments flew through the air as the bullhead fell.
"Everyone brace for impact!" The pilot shouted as the bullhead spun out of the sky as he desperately tried to wrestle it under control with the nevermore still stuck through the windshield, The rest of Team JNPR could only give terrified looks from their seated positions as Jaune felt the surface under him drop out as he tumbled to the floor with his body screaming against the inertia, he barely had the presence of mind to register Nora crying out something and Pyrrha screaming in horror.
Is this it? Is this how we die?
It felt like an eternity as they spun through the air, hurtling towards the earth endlessly.
He did not even feel the impact of the bullhead slamming into the ground.
All he saw was the darkness that snapped over his vision.
And the Breach is on! And everyone is already dying and we've only just gotten started!
And now for other things…
JustCalico actually predicted correctly that the mystery woman was not only Jaune's sister, it was his eldest sister Princess Anne aka Annie Arc. The part he did get wrong though was the part where her relationship is like Jack's relationship to Miranda, I like to think it's the opposite, it's mostly grudging respect, with occasional flare-ups because Winter really can'tstand Annie while Annie loves pushing Winter's buttons. Another way I like to see it is the classic contrast between a soldier and a warrior.
Winter is the soldier, a professional, well-trained and highly dedicated woman who follows a chain of command and the orders she's given, and of course she focuses on the mission at hand and the people she commands.
Annie is the warrior; rebellious princess would not even begin to describe a volatile mix of talent, adventurous spirit, apathy and noticeable lack of a moral compass, willingly taking jobs depending on payment.
She is actually one of the first supporting OCs I created for this fic in my head, I really wanted to do create something apart from the usual RWBY fanfic-fare, although you could say she's my take on every, single ridiculously edgy as fuck OC who's a complete asshole to EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE, the net result is even though she's pretty good, her attitude makes her an extremely difficult person to work with. To that end, rather than rely on melee skills, her central skillset revolves around gunnery and marksmanship and in that respect, what better way to showcase gunslinging than a blend of wild-west clichés?
Her name comes from Annie Oakley, the famous exhibition shooter from Buffalo Bill's Wild West.
Her quick-drawing skill is the basic skill of every western-themed hero.
And the style is of course inspired –though much plainer- of the sort of outfits Clint Eastwood wore in movies like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.
Of course it is a touch more realistic, she's using a captured automatic rifle rather than a lever-action one, and she uses a pistol (still an oldschool M1911 though) over a revolver for anti-personnel situations.
I admit none of this would actually make a lick of sense in RWBY-canon, I don't know if it was stated somewhere the specific caliber of bullet used by Crescent Rose, Milo, and Coco's minigun, so we don't really know what it takes to perma-kill a beowolf (5.56? 7.62? Or 12.7?) . That's obviously because its way cooler to watch people go to town on monsters with awesomesauce transforming melee weapons rather than stand back and shoot them from afar. But I dunno, a gunslinger makes about 30-40% more sense to me because IRL, if you can hit your enemy but they can't, that's a MASSIVE advantage you have.
But I digress, that's common sense and RWBY explicitly runs off on Rule of Cool, and Rule of Cool in this case is that 1 White Fang cell = 1 slightly unstable rogue huntress/mercenary Princess with a thing for gunnery…plus 1 beleaguered Specialist.
Speaking of said beleaguered Specialist, I really wanted to demonstrate the sheer difference in level between actual professionals versus a bunch of trainees and so that's why Winter basically kicks Neo's ass with her summoning into orbit once Neo looks like she could be a problem and completely murders the White Fang lieutenant because how could Weiss screw that up you useless lesbian. Also, given who both Winter and Annie are I doubt they'd show any form of mercy to the White Fang, hence how the chapter is such a brutal bloodbath for the White Fang between the two of them.
And although I've skimped out on writing omakes since the story took a more serious turn, I just wanted to get this one out because it represents an idea I had where I genuinely thought Jaune's identity could have been revealed. It takes place in an alternate scenario where the hearing developed into an actual courtroom drama.
Oh so privileged
"The prosecution calls witness Jaune Arc to the stand please." Blackburn spoke loudly.
Jaune looked at his team and inhaled sharply, they gave him encouraging looks and nods.
Nothing for it now. He thought as he walked up to the stand.
"Do introduce yourself."
"My name is Jaune Arc, I'm the leader of Team JNPR, currently in my first-year at Beacon Academy." Jaune replied staunchly.
"Let's just cut the bullshit out first if we may do so," Jaune lifted an eyebrow as Blackburn flipped through a file, "His Royal Highness, Prince Jean of Armorica?"
A series of loud gasps echoed around the room as whispering erupted all over the room, Jaune did not so much as flinch but remained completely impassive.
"I don't..." Jaune paused for a moment, "I don't see how this is relevant sir."
"I believe in making sure the people who stand to testify are the people that they say they are, otherwise there might be...potential mix-ups, wouldn't you agree?"
Jaune shrugged "...Yes." He stated firmly.
"Alright, so Mr. Arc-" Blackburn was soundly cut off in an instant.
"Excuse me sir," The last word dripped with mockery, "Jaune Arc is a name that my friends and teachers have the privilege of calling me by," He visibly straightened up as his voice took on a commanding tone, "for you, you will address me as your highness."
This is a bare-bones idea of what could have been, don't think too much about it but that's as best as I could write down what I had in mind.
Well that's it, the breach will come sometime before the release of V4, hopefully i can get it out in time
I sincerely appreciate all your reviews, faves and follows!
P.S. which of the myriad of major and minor OCs in this fic is your favorite? I'm just curious because a bunch of you viewers have stated that you enjoy the crass, temperamental Vulcan as well as the Nyla the professional bureaucrat, so I just want to get a handle on things.
