Vol: 7 Chapter 9: The Mad Detonator's Final Countdown
(Play: Red Fraction from "Black Lagoon" Eng cover by AmaLee)
I have a big gun
I took it from my lord
Sick with justice
I just wanna blame you
(A somewhat dirtied image of a Lien card flashes momentarily before it swaps to a blood stained wall of the Schnee manor a cigarette being smoked and an image of either Weiss or Winter from behind holding their weapons which seem bloodied. This then switches to a panning shot of Wolf's Pack going down its barrel.)
I am your angel
Only a call away
You make wanna break you
No matter who you are
(A bullet casing goes flying, showing Weiss' reflection before it cuts to a newspaper article mentioning a shooting in the Forgotten Shore with Weiss being shown holding a side arm, which she fires a few times)
It's all up to you
No one lives forever
Been burned in Hell
By all the pigs out there
It's always been Hell
Ever since I was born
They make we wanna break them
No matter who they are
(The next shot shows the same side arms barrel as Weiss points it at the area in front of her and a cigarette that she had in her mouth falls out as she pulls the trigger and then drops the magazine.)
Get down on your knees
Got a good head on your shoulders
If for you, I'd
Go to the end of the earth
Do what you want
Do it with dedication
I'll put out your misery
(The next shot shows a blood splatter that stains a flurry of feathers that had been blown away by the force of either a gust of wind or gunshot. Another shot shows that an empty bullet casing is rolling on the ground of the streets of Mantle in a pool of blood before it's blown away by the same wind that carried away feathers)
You made a mess
For Christ sake, this rotten world
Shit out of luck
Go with my vision
Light up the fire
Right on the power
A weapon … I have it all
(Weiss is seen sitting in the middle of the streets of Mantle for reasons unknown as the feathers drift through the air around her as the sunset flashes a few times. Then images of Jaune, Sky and Wolfgang are shown before 'Rise of the Iron Wolves: Forgotten' appears on the screen… And is shot at a few times and filled with bullet holes.)
-Thieve's Landing, Forgotten Shore-
"So, what Captain is next on the kill list?" Sky asked as Jaune gathered some relic iron.
"Salas Three-Fingers, the Mad Detonator." The blonde replied.
"... Why do I suddenly have a feeling that Nora might ask for his explosives?" The King mused with a shudder, which Jaune shared. The boy's drones then started scanning for signs as they started heading towards Sorik's Cut, before they got a transmission.
"Ohh! What luck! What fortune! Playmates appear! Hello hello hello!" The voice of the Mad Detonator spoke giddily.
"Oh boy, here we go." Jaune sighed as they started heading out of a cave.
"To begin. A gift, a gift that's for you, from me! Good friend Salas!" The salamander Faunus said. "Best friend Salas. Go, go go, open gift." He told them as they neared an abandoned bandit camp where three caches were sitting in front of the huts.
"... Trap?" Sky asked his fellow knight.
"Trap." The Law of Pacifism nodded. As if on cue, the caches burst open and Dark Dust sprayed everywhere, causing Squibs and Raiders to appear and attack them.
"Surprise! Gift… Is DEATH! EEHEEHEEHEEHEE!" The captain laughed insanely.
Sky whipped out his favorite hand cannons and started firing at the Squibs alongside Jaune. After they were done with those, they moved on to the Raiders.
"Take this!" Jaune yelled as he nailed one in the head with an arrow from No Turning Back, causing it to explode and kill the other reanimated Faunus next to it.
As soon as the Corrupted were dealt with, Salas appeared. He was tall, just like Ironwood, with a similar build and was wearing the same old White Fang garb as the captains. His skin looked just like a salamander's, black with yellow spots all over it. His gold eyes were surrounded by black sclera. Though what really stood out about him, was that he only had three fingers on each hand. Lastly he also had a sash around his body that held Void dust bombs about the size of basketballs.
"There he is!" Jaune exclaimed with a glare. Acting quick, he charged at the Detonator and started slashing at him with his sword, redirecting his bombs back at him with his shield, and firing exploding arrows at him until his aura flickered… To which the Faunus disappeared.
"Ah ah Ahhh. Game go on. Now close eye and count down." The man said before warnings appeared of a splinter mine being set to blow.
"That thing's rigged to blow! We need to stop it!" Joan exclaimed in alarm.
"On it!" Sky yelled as he and Jaune called their hover bikes and started racing towards the bomb, and they soon saw that it was surrounded by Corrupted. Mainly Squibs and Marauders.
"Why am I not surprised?" Gurren sighed as Sky and Jaune dealt with the Corrupted guards. "Dismantling mine now, keep the cover up." He told them. Three waves of enemies later, it was disabled.
"Where am I hiding?" The Madman asked. "Ugly Viral can knowing. But not you! Eehehehehe!" He laughed.
"Picking up Viral signatures on the plains. Highlighting them now." Gurren said as he pinpointed the origin.
"Let's scrap some robots." Sky said as they raced towards the signatures. Once there, they saw Goblins, Hobgoblins and a Minotaur fighting a group of Corrupted. "No sign of him." He said.
"You handle the Viral and Corrupted, I'll find Salas." Jaune said as they split up. As he did though, he soon regretted that decision as he soon came face to face with three Sergeants.
"You had to split off, didn't you?" The blond boy's AED commented flatly.
"How the hell was I supposed to know this was gonna happen!" He shot back as he started firing at the Sergeants with his bike's turrets. After they were dealt with, he heard some chatter coming from a nearby cave, prompting him to investigate.
As soon as he did though, he saw Salas fighting with Sky before he disappeared again. "That must be a teleporter of some sort." Jaune noted.
"Huntsman huntsman, I see you! Yes I do!" Salas sang.
"... The fuck? Was that supposed to be singing?" Sky could stop himself from asking.
"This guy is so fucking annoying." Jaune groaned as they went through the teleporter and then appeared into a cavern. Though as they approached it, Salas appeared and Corrupted started popping up.
"Whee! Now the game truly begins!" He cheered as he started lobbing his grenades at them.
"Oh shit!" Jaune cursed as he and Sky were forced to split up to avoid getting taken out at the same time. "Sky, I think we could really use some cannon fodder to handle his cannon fodder."
"Way ahead of you!" The Grimm Knight called back as he summoned some Enthralled Beowolves to deal with the aforementioned cannon fodder. As the Enthrallen started hacking through the Corrupted, Jaune started firing arrows at Salas and the heads exploded on impact. Though at a certain point he disappeared again and set up a splinter mine.
"We got splinter mines!" Gurren said, alerting the two boys. Sky quickly grabbed Jaune and hurled him into the bomb's ring to let Joan disable it, while he dealt with the Corrupted personally. Unsheathing his sword, he charged forward.
"RAAAAGH!" The King roared as he spun around, swinging his blade and creating a whirlwind of Void energy.
As Joan dismantled the mine, Salas appeared again. "Friend Wolfgang? No fun! No fun at all! Such a boring boy, all he wanted to do was kill, kill, KILL!" He yelled angrily as more Corrupted appeared, along with two more mines as Jaune started shooting at Salas again.
"You have no right to talk about him!" He yelled angrily. Sky and Jaune then started killing everything in their way as their drones took down the bombs before turning their attention to Salas, who Sky nailed with two dark bolts, however they didn't break his Aura.
"Wolfgang begged for his life. "Please please please spare me, Mr. Torchwick! Pretty pretty please!" So sad." The salamander faunus laughed, hurling more grenades at them.
"This little bastard…!" Jaune hissed angrily.
"That does it! We're ending this freak show here and now!" Sky yelled as the two activated their supers and attacked. Sky used Stasis to freeze Salas in place while Jaune used his Sentinel shield to bash him around. He ended it with a solid blow to the head, breaking his aura and making him drop to his knees.
"Wolfgang hunted and murdered Faunus, his own kind!" Salas snapped at them. "Think you different? Think you Hero?" He spat as Jaune crossed both his sword and Wolfgang's across his neck.
"Have you looked at yourself?" He told the salamander faunus before decapitating him.
"That's two down. Only six more to go." Sky told him. "Next on the list is the Tormentor." He added.
"Oh so you're going after Rex, are you? Careful with him. He's a real handful, him." Shan said over the comms.
"Shan Wukong, I hoped I'd never hear your disgusting voice ever again." Sienna spat at the other end.
"Uh, am I missing something?" Jaune asked with a raised eyebrow.
"It's a long story, Mr. Arc. Best to save it for when you go find Rex. Meantime, I suggest you two better get home. Ironwood said he has an important announcement to make regarding the construction of Amity Tower." Shan told them.
"Better get moving. This is gonna be big." Sky said as they took their leave.
(Later)
At the Amity Tower construction site, Ironwood stood with the Ace Ops, Winter and Penny on his side while the others were opposite him. Weiss had finally gotten out of the hospital at this point, and although she was still sad, her mom being there for her really helped her cheer up.
"Well everyone, I have some good news. And unfortunately some bad news." He told them.
"What's the bad news?" Sun asked.
"The Hellas Basin has started to thaw, and if it thaws out completely, one of our high value assets could be in danger of being seized by Salem." Ironwood replied.
"What kind of high value asset are we talking about here?" Sky inquired.
"The Terramind, Rasputin." The man responded. This caused everyone who didn't know to look at one another in confusion.
"Terramind? I've never heard of such a thing." Ren commented, the others nodding in agreement.
"A Terramind is a military artificial intelligence designed for strategic orbital or land warfare. They are so complex and intelligent that the Viral have difficulty simulating them." Winter explained.
"Additionally, Rasputin is the main warmind, managing the vast network of warsats used for communication across the system. He launches these warsats out of six separate launch towers all facing different directions. Each warsat has a kinetic shield for defence against sentient enemies or simple asteroids." Pietro added.
"And what's a Warsat?" Blake asked.
"Communication links as well as orbital attack platforms. They're attack power is unrivaled by most modern day technology." Pietro explained. "I say 'most' because a certain someone is starting to get there." He added as he looked at Sky.
"I am not apologizing." He stated, getting a giggle from Yang.
"Rasputin has other weapons as well, such as anti asteroid guns and other such weapons. However, the Warsats are the most important because of the material they give us to create powerful weapons ourselves." Ironwood continued.
"Which is why it's really important for us to safeguard him before Xol and his Knight can get to him." Penny added.
"We can't allow Salem or Xol to destroy Rasputin or worse, control him." Clover added. However a few of them noticed that Deus and the Iron Wolves seemed bitter the entire conversation, but chose to leave it be.
"Okay, I'll try to help however I can after me and Jaune are done in the Forgotten Shore." Sky told him. "What's the good news?" He asked.
"The good news is, thanks to you supplying us with extra labor and supplies, we should have Amity Tower ready ahead of schedule." Pietro said.
"And with that we've also been able to reroute supplies to Mantle, so things have calmed down significantly." Clover added.
"Unfortunately though, Robin Hill and her gang still seem, less than convinced." Winter continued.
"That doesn't surprise me." Foxxianna sighed.
"I figured the tourism industry on the Immortal Rage might convince her somewhat." Sky muttered.
"When it comes to politics, it's never that simple, sadly." Deus sighed.
"Other than that, it seems that everything is working out quite well." Ironwood told them. "That's all for today everyone. Dismissed."
(Later)
In the depths of the old watchtower on the Forgotten Shore, a giant reptilian creature stirred in its sleep as a Seer Grimm floated in front of it before the creature formed an image of Salem in front of it.
In between the two was a shimmering blue pool of crystal clear water surrounded by golden plants. It looked like… The pool of Creation!
"Mmmm, Before me stands a Queen. She offers to take me away. But I know she will not let me leave, either. An unfavorable position. I never made a bargain with a queen. I would like to try it. I tell her to take whatever she wishes. As long as she wishes." The creature said to itself before looking at Salem's projection. "So tell me, O taker mine. Shall we make a bargain together?" It asked, its ten eyes blinking, fangs flashing and clawed arms crossed before it.
"Yes, O wish granter mine. We shall." Salem nodded. She reached her hand out and took one of the creature's talons in hand and shook. Everything around them was then consumed by darkness.
A deal is a deal, after all.
Dragon Emperor0: Riven… is in a tower, built around the realm of Aether, the older brother. How the hell did that even happen?!
ThermalsniperN7: Probably some people that didn't want the Ahamkaras to go totally extinct. I dunno. Either way, this can't end well.
Dragon Emperor0: Yeah. Also hope you guys didn't mind the teaser for the next arc, but we had to foreshadow it in the story somehow. Also expect for the next couple of chapters including some cannon material as well. Because if I'm being honest, these Captain hunts are kinda short ngl.
ThermalsniperN7: Yeah, they can be pretty short. Especially when you know what you're doing.
Dragon Emperor0: Yeah. Well guys, be sure to tune in next time when Jaune and Sky take down the Tormentor. Anyway, see you next time.