A.N. (6/15/21) - Don't worry, the last chapter wasn't just a once-in-a-blue-moon update. Because here's another one!
Argus (22) - Assault Operation
Given that they were gathering up their forces for a full-on assault against the main base of a criminal organization, Winter thought it was unusual how easy this mission was.
From her perspective, she had only just learned about the existence of the human supremacist group earlier this week. The fact that they not only identified their main city of operations but also the location of their main base, within the week is quite unusual when comparing her past missions.
Either way, arrangements for their troops to move out of the city were already underway. Passing through the southern walls of the city, Winter made her way to the front where the rest of the Ace Operatives were waiting.
"Is everything prepared?" she asked.
Vine was the one who responded first. "The drones we sent to scout ahead should send us a visual soon enough. Once they do, we'll be able to see exactly what we're going to be dealing with."
"Please," Harriet scoffed. "What's the worst that could happen?"
"We could encounter the troops of White Fang that young Tohsaka informed us about," Vine answered. "After all, we still have not discovered their location as of yet."
"Huh," she said. "I didn't think about that."
He continued to speak. "Or we could end up engaging against a massive number of Grimm drawn to the negative emotions of any potential captives."
"Yikes," Elm winced.
"Or several of our own troops might betray us as they reveal themselves to be working with the Allies."
"Ahahaha," Clover gave an awkward laugh. "Hey, Vine. Buddy, I know you're just trying to be helpful, but could you please just… stop talking."
Vine blinked in response. "But Harriet asked me to list potential worst-case scenarios."
"Yeah," Harriet sighed. "But I didn't actually want to hear them."
Vine merely nodded at her response. "Apologies, then I will now cease discussing the possibilities of how we can fail our mission and potentially risk losing our only chance for stopping the Allies."
Everyone just gave him a look that said 'why are you doing this' before moving on.
"Let me call this in first," Winter said. Pressing a finger to the communicator in his ear, he spoke. "Command center, we're just about to head out. We'll update you once we reach the location."
"Roger that," an unfamiliar voice responded. "We'll keep watch over the city while you guys are gone."
She frowned. "Where is Specialist Cordovin, I thought she was assuming command?"
"She left just a minute ago to talk to the asset," he answered. "Something about how it was only proper that a true citizen of Atlas should always greet their guests personally."
That did sound like something she would do, Winter thought to herself before speaking. "Very well, report back to me once she's available. Our group will most likely contact her within the hour."
"Roger that, Ma'am."
On the other side of the call, the Atlas soldier smirked as he ended the call. Turning around, he found himself looking at the bound form of Specialist Cordovin glaring at him from the chair she was tied to.
"You'll never get away with this," she spat out. "Atlas will never accept traitors taking command."
"With all due respect," he began with a chuckle. "Who do you think gave me the command to start this revolt of ours? You have no idea how high up this goes."
If only she knew that it was a councilman of all people who gave the order, then she might have sung a different tune. No, maybe not. For all her dedication to Atlas, the woman was somewhat stubborn about her values and ideals.
Gesturing towards another soldier, he jerked his thumb towards Cordovin. "Throw her in one of the guest rooms and lock the doors. We'll deal with her once we take over this city."
"This insubordination of yours is doomed to fail," Cordovin yelled as she was dragged away. "The might of Atlas will never succumb to the wills of terrorists and supremacists. We will never surrender, for we—"
The doors shut before she could finish what she said, and only then did the soldier sigh in relief.
"Finally, she just would not shut up." He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, time for phase two."
Pressing a button, he called the second group. "Alright team, it's time. Take out the tower."
"Roger that, we're setting off the charges now."
The sound of something exploding on the other end of the call made him smile. The screen suddenly turned red as it began warning about the loss in citywide communications, the sole exception being several devices connected to the Atlas Military Base. Lucky for them, otherwise, taking out the local CCT Tower would have hurt them as well.
"What's the word for securing the base?"
Another soldier replied to him. "We've gathered those that are loyal to us and managed to take out most of those who aren't. This place is officially under our control."
"Any problems?"
"Well," the other man hesitated. "We still haven't captured the asset yet. I just received word that she fought off our troops and holed herself up in one of the empty rooms."
That caused him to scowl. "You know why we need her, we can't allow her to escape. If she somehow finds a way out of here..."
"Don't worry, the rest of our troops are already headed her way. There's no way she can escape."
}-{
"Why aren't those doors open yet?"
"Hold on," another soldier yelled. "I've already called for someone to remotely open the doors for us. Even if she destroyed the keypad, I doubt she thought about messing with the lock mechanism itself. And since these walls are made with stopping huntsmen in mind, this is the only way for her to escape."
Several dozen troops waited outside in the corridor leading to the room Rin was hiding in. Hearing the voices of the soldiers outside, she grimaced.
If there are this many soldiers after me, then I think it's safe to say that the entire base is compromised. Breaking another piece of machinery in the room, she reached inside and grabbed the canister of Dust from within. Once I get out of here, I need to check and see if Terra and the rest of the faunus are safe or not.
And since her Scroll wasn't working, it wasn't as if she could just call Winter and tell her what was going on.
Uncapping the canister, she emptied its contents onto the ground before her and onto the small growing pile of Dust she managed to gather from various appliances around the room.
"It's too late to turn this into something I can use for magecraft," Rin said before smirking. "But it should do nicely for some simple mystic bullets."
Pressing her hands into the pile, she poured her magical energy into the pile of Dust and willed it together.
-Start-
"—Set,
-Fire, Water, Earth, Wind-
—One, two, three, four.
-Kischur-
—Dust."
Once she was done, four crystals of splendid size and brightness formed together. Four bullets of elemental composition, not exactly suitable for storing complicated spells but perfect for blowing things up.
Right as she finished placing them into her weapon, she heard the sound of the doors opening. Turning to face the entrance, she faked a confident grin on her face.
"So, that didn't take long."
"Give it up," the soldier facing her said, pointing a gun towards her. "We have you surrounded, there's nowhere for you to escape."
"Really," she quirked an eyebrow at him. "You sure you can handle me? I mean, I doubt you have the numbers to stop me."
The soldier just gave her an annoyed look. "We have several dozen soldiers just waiting for you to make your move. Not even someone from the Ace-Ops is stupid enough to think that they can take us all on."
"Like I said, I doubt you have the numbers to stop me." She finally raised her gun towards him. "After all, I managed to defeat the Ace-Ops just a few days ago."
Pressing the trigger, the makeshift mystic bullet of the wind element exploded as it caused a storm of air to blow all the soldiers away. Reinforcing her body, Rin took advantage of the chaos to run out into the hallway and make her escape.
Several soldiers began shooting at her, but Rin merely raised her arm behind her and fired off another shot. A wall of earth suddenly exploded, blocking off the passage between her and the soldiers and allowing her to run away without anyone following her.
Jewel Magecraft.
A branch of magecraft that took advantage of the natural properties of gemstones using mystical means. It was her specialty and something that translated perfectly well with how this world operated on Dust for all of its energy usages. While normally, she used gems to store her magical energy to use for later, there were other means of manipulating the gem's natural properties.
And everyone knew that the main property of Dust was that it was very explosive.
Spotting another group of soldiers ahead, she raised her gun and fired off another shot. This time, the entire corridor was encased in ice, with all the soldiers frozen in place and unable to move. Passing by them, she rounded a corner and skied to a stop as she found the person she was looking for.
"Rin, run away!"
Only, instead of finding Terra safe and sound, she was currently being held hostage as a soldier held his gun to her head.
"Surrender now, or your friend gets it."
Hostage situations were always tricky. It was hard to determine what to do when taking into account the lives at risk.
Luckily for Rin, that wasn't a problem.
"You're not going to shoot her," she said to him.
"What, are you crazy?" The man wiggled the gun in his hand. "Of course I am, don't think I'm bluffing."
"That's not what I meant," Rin took a step forward, her eyes flashing a bright blue light. "I meant you're going to remove your gun from her right this instant and put your hands in the air."
It was no Jedi mind trick, but the outcome was basically the same. The man instantly blinked before letting go of Terra and raising both of his arms above him. Stumbling away from him, the bespeckled woman's eyes were wide in shock as she took in what was happening.
Terra faced Rin with an incredulous look. "Did you just mind control him?!"
"Hypnosis," Rin corrected. "A mental suggestion, and a pretty weak one at that. It should wear off soon, so let's get out of here before it does."
As Terra ran up to her, Rin fired off a weak Gandr curse towards the hypnotized man, causing him to fall to the ground unconscious. Grabbing the older woman's hand, Rin continued running down the corridor.
Some small part of her mind realized that Terra might realize that she had just used two separate abilities just now. While Rin never said much about her abilities to Terra in the past, even she could tell that having two separate abilities was unusual. It wasn't as if Rin could attribute both to a Semblance, seeing as shooting curse blasts was a pretty far stretch to connect to mind control.
Oh well, she thought to herself. That's something that I'll deal with in the future. Right now, we have bigger problems.
"Where are the children," Rin asked. "Terra, are they safe? Are they all okay?"
"Y-Yes," she stammered. "Just turn a corner here, and you'll find a locked door that leads to where they are. But be careful, four guards are keeping watch over them."
"Not a problem," Rin said. "Just stay behind me."
She still had one makeshift mystic bullet left, but that was a little too much for confronting a potential hostage situation. So for now, she decided that she was going to stick to using Gandr from now on since it was more useful for non-lethal takedowns. Finding the doors leading to the others, her eyes narrowed as she realized that it was locked.
"Busting these down ain't going to cut it," Rin said while eyeing the thick metal doors. "And I don't have any other way to unlock the doors."
"E-Erm, I can probably see if I can open the entrance." Terra gave a nervous chuckle. "I messed around with this type of electronic lock before. Just let me pull out my Scroll so that I can mess with the lock."
The older woman took about a dozen or two seconds to open up her device and point it towards the lock before a satisfying click was heard.
"Huh," Rin said. "I didn't know you could do that."
"Something I picked up in my university days," Terra explained. "But I'll leave it to you from this point on."
"Might want to step back then."
Terra gave a sheepish look at that as she took Rin's advice, and the younger girl merely raised an eyebrow before opening the doors.
Time seemed to slow down as she took in the scene before her. All the faunus children were tied up on the ground with rags covering their mouths. The faunus huntsman - whose name she still hadn't got yet - was unconscious and slumped against a wall. The four soldiers keeping watch over them were slowly turning her way.
Raising her arm, she let loose four blasts of Gandr at them, hitting them all straight in the chest. Luckily for her, that was all it took for them to fall unconscious.
She lowered her arm and gave the children a confident look. "Hey kids, how about we finally get out of this place and find somewhere safe to stay?"
There was no telling how much of the base was compromised, and since the police and the military were out, that didn't leave her with many choices.
If she could, Rin probably would have asked the White Fang for help. But since that meant getting out of the city without being detected, that was somewhat difficult for her to do.
And her workshop wasn't exactly a safe place either. Sure, it was possibly one of the most well-protected places in the city. But it wasn't exactly kid-friendly with all the dangerous experiments and explosive materials around.
"That's everyone, Rin." Terra helped free the last person before turning to her. "Now what?"
Rin picked up the unconscious faunus man and tossed him across her shoulders. Turning around, she began making plans for taking everyone to the closest airship they could find. And afterward, somehow find a place in the city where neither the military nor the police will be able to enter.
Right as she thought that, she realized that there was only one place she could go.
"Let's move everyone," she yelled out. "Next stop, Sanctum Academy."
Alright, so things are about to head towards the finale of this arc.
Some of my readers have complained that even though I played up Pyrrha's importance, there hasn't been much interaction between Rin and Pyrrha thus far. I'm hoping to change that soon, so unless my plans for the next few chapters radically change, expect the two to meet up soon.
If you haven't noticed so far, I didn't mention Qrow being part of the force following the Atlas troops. So far, I'm indecisive on what to do with him for future chapters. It's honestly fifty-fifty with me on whether or not I decide to have him be there at Sanctum instead of with the Atlas troops.