Chapter 25
Asher wheezed, blood mixing with the air escaping his throat, a dark red stain growing on the muddy ground below him. Sage and Rust were far worse off than him, lying behind him in crumpled heaps with glassy looks in their lifeless eyes.
Asher just wanted this all to end… but he knew that she would gloat first, revel in her victory before finally granting him death; death was what he deserved… he had failed his armies and his kingdom… he had underestimated her cunning and sheer ruthlessness at every turn…
The facilitator of his torment stood before him, her Atlesian officers uniform spotless despite the piles of corpses around them. Behind her stood the full might of an unmatched army, already beginning their march towards territories that would soon kneel to them. She was smiling at him, but her eyes and lips completely lacked the easy warmth she usually regarded him with. She took a single predatory step forwards, the tip of her leather boots disturbing the soft soil beneath her.
"Pathetic," Mauve whispered under her breath as she observed the carnage. "With all your resources pooled together… you three still didn't stand a chance."
Asher tried to speak but he couldn't… awed into silence at her cruelty.
Mauve turned her amber gaze down towards his broken form again. "You were never a match for me… and now you'll return to the dust where you came from…" She stopped her villainous monologue long enough to crouch down and cup his cheek in mock affection. "Any final words? I'd love to hear them…"
Asher still couldn't speak, this time due to the blood pooling in his mouth, he managed a half-hearted gurgle as his response. Mauve didn't say anything, simply standing again and rearing up a vicious curb stomp, her foot making contact with the soft flesh of his temple…
"Damn…" muttered Rust, slapping the remainder of his cards on the map of Remnant. "I didn't know you had a thing for dramatics…"
"Eh" Mauve replied, flicking her cards down haphazardly. "World domination and slaughtering armies can be a power trip…"
"I loved your villainous monologue…"
"I was the villain?" Mauve spoke confusedly.
"You just went into a full explanation about how your armies would ravage our kingdoms… and how you would personally execute us…" Sage mumbled. The faunus boy flicked a thumb in the direction of Asher, the fair-haired boy still looked dumbfounded about his loss and Mauve's utter cruelty towards her friends… and him.
"Didn't you, like… ruthlessly burn down a village a few turns ago?" Mauve shot back.
Sage shrugged and put his cards down. "Details, details…"
Rust gave Asher a quick pinch on his shoulder to shake him out of his stupor. The grey-eyed boy shook his head and began shuffling his cards to organize them.
"Mauve," Asher began. "Do you want to explain to me how you manage to win almost every game we play…"
Mauve observed her boyfriend from across the table with keen eyes, smiling gently and propping up a gloved hand to support her head. "I'll have to chalk it up to my many incredible qualities… my intelligence, cunning, quick thinking skills… all things you wish you had…"
"Don't forget your modesty and humble nature," Asher snarked back.
"What's that?" Mauve mocked, cupping a hand around one of her human ears and turning her head in Asher's direction. "I couldn't hear you over the sound of my armies ravaging your lands and subjugating your people… want to speak up?"
Mauve gave a burst of laughter when she saw the sour look on Asher's face. Rust just chuckled and moved to help put away the board.
"Asher does have a point," Sage mumbled. "You're a frickin' prodigy at everything we try… what's your secret?"
"I've already made that clear… try and keep up…"
The banter came to a natural resting place as Team MARS worked together to put the board away. Rust had been the one to borrow "Domination" from Team RWBY and he didn't want to return an incomplete set, lest he never be trusted with their property again.
While the morning board game had been a fun time-waster, there were more important things to pay attention to. It had been one week since work had commenced in the Beacon workshops and a lot of progress had been made. Ruby and Mauve finally completed two working prototypes for her new weapons and Nora had pulled through by helping Sage develop his grenade launcher. The work had been completed very late at night and Team MARS had agreed to start testing on the weekends when free time was abundant.
Asher's new sawn-off shotgun had required little work, but other than a few test fires he had done little to train with it. Instead, the huntsman in training occupied himself with building a new ammunition pouch and holster for the gun.
The shells would be stored in an ammo pouch secured to his left hip. The shotgun itself would be stored in a quickdraw holster on the back of Asher's hips.
Already dressed in their combat gear in anticipation of the training day, Team MARS stopped at the workshop to collect their prototypes before occupying their usual training room. Asher and Rust got to work setting up some basic targets while Sage and Mauve prepared their gear.
"Sage," Mauve spoke. "You're up!"
Sage nodded and pulled out his new weapon of mass destruction, barely suppressing the cruel grin that spread across his face as he spun the rotating drum. It was coloured a dark gunmetal grey but Sage intended to change it once a final version was completed. In order to carry the weapons ordnance, Sage had procured a bandolier to sling across his chest. Loading several paint grenades (courtesy of Nora) into the rotating drum Sage hefted the weapon up to eye level and took aim at a nearby target.
The contact grenade sprung from the barrel with a "thunk" and landed a few feet short of the target, the paint spray splattering the ground near MARS' feet.
"Sage!" Mauve snarled, eyes narrowed at her now soiled boots.
"Relax!" Asher called back. "It washes off pretty easily…"
"Still!"
"He made an error…" Asher turned his gaze towards Sage. "You can't fire it like a rifle… trying pointing it upwards a bit, change the trajectory."
Sage nodded sheepishly and pointed the barrel of the weapon higher. The second grenade flew a bit too far, instead landing behind the target. Sage shook his head and tried again, pointing a little lower, but still got a subpar result. "I don't know if I'll get the hang of this…"
"Keep trying!" Rust offered. "How about you try firing from behind your shield?"
"You think that will help?"
"You'll have a place to lay the barrel."
Sage nodded and deployed his shield to its full size. Angling the grenade launcher upwards Sage rested the barrel of the weapon on top of the shield. Sage narrowed his eyes behind the viewing screen and fired another grenade. The shot was more accurate than the others, at least splattering the target with a little paint.
"Better!" Mauve complimented.
"Come on… keep practicing and I'll help you call your shots." Asher mumbled, moving behind Sage to continue coaching him. It was only logical that Asher would be the one to help given his experience with firearms.
Mauve felt someone tap her shoulder, she turned her head and looked upwards to meet Rust's brown-eyed gaze.
"Let's leave those two for a bit," Rust suggested. "Ready to try out your new guns? Targets should be ready…"
Mauve smiled and turned to regard her own targets, set up by Asher a few minutes prior; reaching to the sheathes on her back Mauve pulled out her new weapons. Because of the different proportions and blade design, new sheathes had to be created for their safe storage but they still crossed her back in an "X" formation. Mauve's new weapons (she was considering naming them "Proton 2" and "Electron 2" but that was a little lame) were a far cry from her old kukri blades.
The new weapons instead featured straight blades that ended with a pointed tip. In its gun form her new weapons would take the appearance of semi-automatic pistols, with the blade portion retracting in on itself and stored under the barrel (a similar design to Sage's own blade). When switching to the blade form, the blades would expand forwards and lock together and the pistol grips would angle horizontally to become parallel to the blade length, creating two knives.
"Give'em some test swings!" Rust suggested, taking a precautionary step back as he did so.
Mauve nodded and began practicing several different maneuvers, some simple and others very complicated. The new blades sliced through the air with incredible grace but Mauve still had a nagging feeling. Unlike her kukri knives, which had been perfectly weighted for her hands, the new weapons had a bulkier design and less even weight distribution.
"Whats up?" Rust asked, noticing the sour look on Mauve's face, another paint grenade splattered in the background.
"The weights off," Mauve grumbled. "I'm used to swinging two blades around with little difficulty or pull… it's going to take some time to adjust."
"Eh… they're only prototypes, you can always ask Ruby to adjust the weight." Rust offered.
"Fair enough…"
"How about you try out the guns?"
Mauve nodded again and activated the switching mechanisms simultaneously. She yelped a little when the blades retracted and stored themselves under the barrels and the grips shifted. In under two seconds she was holding two pistols, similar to Asher's in terms of weight but possessing longer barrels.
Mauve took aim at the prepared targets and let loose several rubber rounds, alternating her fire as she did so. In a few moments the magazines were empty and Mauve fumbled as she removed and replaced the spent reserves. Meanwhile, Rust retrieved the paper target she was firing out, presenting it to her once he was close enough. Mauve felt a pang of disappointment at the inaccurate shot grouping but chalked it up to inexperience. While her ambidexterity allowed her to operate both guns with little difficulty, learning to split her aim with the two weapons would take some time.
Time flew by as Team MARS continued their training session. Under the coaching and encouragement from Asher and Rust, Mauve and Sage were slowly improving with their new equipment.
The session came to a screeching halt when one of Sage's grenades prematurely detonated after leaving the barrel. The faulty projectile splattered the entire area in bright pink paint, drenching the entire team.
Sage tried not to laugh as he wiped the paint of his eyes. Asher was as equally covered as he was and Rust had used his semblance to remain clean. Mauve wiped a massive glob of paint out of her eyes and fixed Sage with a cold glare.
"Well… that was fun…" Rust chuckled. "I don't suppose we could end off with that? I've got plans tonight…"
"Oh yeah?' Sage questioned. "Care to share with the rest of us?"
Rust straightened his back, "Vermillion and I are going to dinner in Vale… we've been trying to organize it for a while now and I'm looking forward to a proper date."
His three teammates nodded.
"What have you got going on tonight, Sage?" Asher questioned.
"I dunno…" Sage answered. "I'll probably just see what Honey's up to…"
"You two get out of here then… Mauve and I can clean up a little…" Asher replied.
"We will?" Mauve sputtered.
"Yep… now scram!"
Rust and Sage laughed and lumbered out of the room, Sage hefting his paint splattered grenade launcher over his shoulder.
"So…" Asher spoke softly as he turned towards his leader. "How are you finding the new equipment?"
"Pretty good overall… I'll need to send Ruby a gift basket or something as a thank you," Mauve replied. She used her soiled gloves to wipe the sticky pink paint off the weapons but they would need a proper clean. As of right now they were a rather unremarkable grey but Mauve planned to colour and engrave them like her original weapons.
"Good… and who do you have to thank for the training in firearms?" Asher joked with a smug smile.
"You…" Mauve rolled her eyes. She gave him a light smile as she leaned forwards and pecked him on the lips. They both recoiled in disgust and began spitting paint, spawning a smatter of laughter from the two of them.
"Hey…" Asher began as the laughs died down. "You got anything going on tonight?"
"Not really."
"You want to go to dinner somewhere?"
Mauve blinked. "Go to dinner?"
"Yeah! Vale's got plenty of great restaurants… and it occurred to me that we've never had a proper date night…"
Mauve smiled, "I'd love to… we'll finish up here and then head back to the dorms to clean up?"
"Sounds great to me…"
Mauve smiled wider when Asher stepped forwards to wrap her in a soggy hug. She returned the gesture and hummed when he tightened his embrace around her lower back. Mauve pushed her face into the familiar crook of his neck but his usual delicious scent was masked by the sweet smell of paint.
"Hey Mauve…?"
"Yeah…?"
"This paint is really cold… hey!" Asher yelped when Mauve freed her hand and flicked his nose. "What was that for?"
Mauve regarded him with a dry look. "For ruining a nice moment…"
"Yeah, that makes sense…"