Chapter 45: Rescue.
"All due respect to the senate, for which I have an awful lot of respect for, but I'm not going to answer another question. Because I'm not under arrest and I'm going to walk out of here." ~ Frank Costello during the Kefauver Hearings 1951.
I dreamed.
I lost all sense of time as the torture continued and I slipped in and out of consciousness again and again to the point were the difference sometimes felt like a blur. Sometimes I dreamed of the tortures continuing but other dreams were far more pleasant, dancing at the Moonstone or laying bed, naked and intimately pressed against a warm soft body. Sometimes it was Neo, other times it was Blake and there were even times it was both of them in a way I hadn't even dared to fantasize about until that moment.
They were so vivid, I swore that I could smell Blake's lavender perfume or taste Neo's expensive vanilla flavored lip gloss. They were some of the best dreams I ever had, so naturally they didn't last very long.
I was ripped violently away from the comfort of sleep with cold dirty water being splashed all over me. I spasmed violently as the sensation forced me into consciousness. Considering how it felt to be waterboarded I didn't enjoy the chosen method of rude awakening, it set me straight into a state of panic.
"Sorry, did I wake you?" Dipshit greeted me, dropping the bucket down on the ground with a dark chuckle.
It took me a moment to recover from the panic attack that accompanied the wet awakening. I forced myself to take several long deep breaths to calm myself. It is difficult to explain how horrible you feel when you have to remind yourself that you are able to do something as simple as breathe.
"I was in the middle of a really fucking good dream!" I growled at him once I had composed myself. I shook my head trying to throw the water out of my drenched hair.
"Aww, sorry." Dipshit said to me with a laugh. "What was it about?"
"A couple of girls." I admitted to him with a forced grin. "I think your mother was there too."
"Ha, ha." Dipshit deadpanned unimpressed with my weak attempt at humor. "Well just one warning, we're tired of that aura of yours making things difficult for us. So fall asleep again and it's not going to be a bucket of water that wakes you up."
"You want me to stay awake, asshole?" I snarled. "Then shut the fuck up and bring me a caramel latte with an extra shot of expresso. And don't talk to me, you're boring as shit to listen to."
Dipshit backhanded me across the face. My aura, somewhat rejuvenated from my short rest, flared up and shielded me from the blow. Dipshit cursed and clutched his hand in pain.
I chuckled meekly at the tiny inconsequential victory I had achieved. It was important to appreciate the little things in a moment like this.
"You think you're tough shit do you?" Dipshit asked me with a growl, flexing his hand.
"No, but I do think you're a pussy." I said to him defiantly.
Dipshit laughed at me. "You weren't so fucking tough ealier, crying to your mama with your nipples rigged to a car battery."
I averted my gaze from him. He was right. It was easy to act strong willed while I was feeling fresh from a short rest, but earlier as I had been subjected to all manner of pain, I had felt my will weaken and break more than once.
I begged for mercy again and again and again. I cried for my mother, for the gods, for someone, anyone to save me.
No one came, but I didn't talk. At least no more than I already had before revealing that everything was being moved to the southeast. But after that I didn't squeal. I lied, I cried, I led them along spewing bullshit but I didn't fucking talk.
They didn't waterboard me. They had tried again but I was unable to endure that agony again. I just swallowed the water and almost drowned without answering any questions. After that they kept to means of torture that were less likely to accidenlty kill me, or let me kill myself. Not that I intended to drown myself, but my captors seemed to think I had done it intentionally and there was no fucking way I was going to correct them.
"You think this is tough?" Dipshit asked me. "This is fucking nothing compared to prison, five minuites in the gulag you'd be begging to be someone's bitch just so you could spend those cold Atlesian nights next to someone warm."
I didn't say anything. I let my head hang forward and closed my eyes as he went on and on about how I'd be a weak little bitch in some Atlas prison. I wasn't completely joking when I called him boring. After he had gone on for a minute it just became noise to me and my exhaustion was too much for me.
My eyes closed and I almost slipped back into the warm embrace of my peaceful and wondrous dreams. Unfortunately Dipshit noticed and smacked me awake.
"I thought I told you to stay awake." Dipshit told me.
"And I told you to stop boring me." I answered numbly.
"You killed two of my friends! People I spent time behind bars with! They were the closest thing I had to brothers." He told me. "And do you know what we do to those who kill our people in the gulag?"
"I'm sure you're going to tell me." I deadpanned.
"How about I show you instead." He said with a grin stepping over to the table and grabbing something and fiddling with it.
"Fuck with us and we fuck with you." Dipshit told me holding up a piece of copper wire he had twisted into a B. "We'd hunt you, track you until we could find you alone and then we'd beat the shit out of you, break your hands and feet and then conscious or not we'd turn you into a bitch for our pleasure."
He lit up a butane torch and used it to heat up the piece of wire running the jet of blue flame over the twisted piece of copper again and again until it faintly glowed in his gloved hand. "And then we'd made everyone in the whole prison know you were a bitch. So that whoever you turned your back to could treat you like it."
He stepped behind me and forced my head down and pushed away my damp hair before pressing the hot improvised brand down on the nape of my neck.
I tried to protect myself with my aura but it didn't last. Eventually I felt the red hot copper wire press into my skin. I smelled my own flesh burn and I screamed feeling it brand me.
It was over soon and Dipshit laughed as he cooled the wire off with some water in another bucket. "Am I boring you now? I hope not, because we still have four more letters to go. I think I'll just stab you to dot the I."
He bent the wire and was starting to heat it up to apply the second letter when the door opened. Wyatt stepped in with Billy and two others and took a long heavy look at Dipshit holding the torch and wire looking quite guilty.
"What the fuck are you doing!?" Wyatt asked him dangerously, behind him I saw Billy put his hand on his pistol clearly considering shooting the man right there.
"Just keeping him awake like you ordered me to sir." Dipshit answered him, trying to sound innocent.
"Did I fucking say you could touch him!?" Wyatt hissed, crossing the room and decking him across the face, sending him to the ground. One of the guys who entered stepped up and grabbed the blowtorch from him. "I ordered you to keep him awake not torture him! Was I not clear!?"
Dipshit covered his bleeding nose. "I figured pain was a good way to do that."
"Did you at least get any answers from him?" Billy asked, moving towards me and looking at me up and down. He spotted the B that had been branded on the back of my neck. He ran his calloused thumb over it gently. It stung and made me wince.
"He didn't ask me any questions." I told them.
Wyatt growled. "Get the fuck out of here! Go scrub the shitter or something!" He said roughly picking him up and throwing him out the door before taking another long look at me. One of the guys closed and locked the door. I didn't say anything to Wyatt.
"Get some disinfectant on that burn Billy." Wyatt ordered him.
Billy obeyed and proceeded to open a first aid kit they kept alongside their torture impliments. He took a tube of some white cream that he applied to the back of my neck. It stung for a second but soon it felt quite soothing.
"What, you don't want me catching an infection before you take that belt sander to me?" I asked him bitterly.
"How about some water?" Wyatt asked me, holding up a plastic bottle. I didn't like the look of this. That menacing stare he had given me before was now gone, he almost looked gentle and that only put me more on guard.
"Fuck you!" I said to him.
"Come on, you're dehydrated." He said, bringing the bottle to my lips and gently tilting it.
I drank the cold clean water. For a second I considered holding it in my mouth and spitting at him. For all I knew it was a truth serum of some kind. But despite all the water they had dumped on me before my throat was dry and I couldn't help but drink greedily. I would have drained the bottle but Wyatt pulled it back after just a couple of gulps.
"That's enough for now, kid." He said. "You'll get sick if you drink too much."
I didn't say anything. I just stared at his boots waiting for another eternity of pain to begin. I was sure that I wouldn't last this time, I was going to break sooner or later and at this point I knew it would be sooner, later had passed me by.
"My boy Hardin here went to your place." Wyatt explained to me motoning over to one of the newcomers. A slim built guy dressed in grey fatigues with a pair of pistols hanging from shoulder holsters. "The one you've been staying in above the Moonstone Club."
"There wasn't much to find there." Hardin admitted. "Hell it looked like the place was already turned upside down when I got there. You don't keep a lot of damning evidence lying around I'll admit, but I found something that seems to have been looked over."
Wyatt held up a plastic bag. It was the one I had hidden in my toilet tank full of burner scrolls, notably the one I used to contact Ozpin. It also had a number of fake IDs, some money and a spare gun.
"It's just a bug out bag." I said to them.
"That's what we thought." Wyatt said to me. "It's a pretty slim one, no pictures or mementos of any kind."
I shrugged despite being restrained. "I'm a practical person." I said, more to keep the conversation going longer and avoid pain as long as possible.
"Like I said, I've been watching you for a while now." Wyatt said stepping towards the table with the various tools he used to hurt me, he set the bag down and opened it. I noticed a black and gingerish orange cat hop up onto the table, Wyatt gave it an affectionate pet. "I remember when I saw you risk yourself to save that Mistrali gangster."
"How do you control that cat?" I asked him, ignoring his comments. Looking at the feline's scarred up face. It looked like such a dirty and unkept beast I couldn't imagine it as his pet or anything. If I was a vet I'd put it down.
"We'll ask the questions here." Hardin said to me.
Wyatt pulled something out of the bag and stepped forward showing me the very burner scroll that I was supposed to use to talk to Ozpin. I looked at my own reflection on the cracked screen. "I want to talk to you about this." He told me.
"It's just a burner scroll." I lied to him. Of course he had to know that there was more to it that that, but I wasn't going to admit anything.
"That's what we thought." Hardin said, crossing his arms. "But we're thorough and we got some pretty hardcore geeks that can pick apart a scroll."
I felt my blood go ice cold as he said that. I had deleted all records of those few calls I made to Ozpin on that scroll. As far as I knew there was no real evidence about those calls on the damn thing. But apparently I hadn't been through enough.
I should have just smashed the shit out of it and burned the pieces like I had considered doing more than once. That would have saved me a lot of trouble.
"Why were you talking to headmaster Ozpin?" Wyatt asked me calmly and evenly. "Why were you calling his personal number?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." I lied to him. I expected him to start hitting me or something but no blow came or any threat of one. Instead Wyatt stepped forward and knelt down looking me in the eye.
"This scroll made four calls to the headmaster's personal scroll in the last two and half months." Wyatt told me firmly. "And it's not just a normal burner scroll, it encrypted the data, and it was encrypted with an Atlas code, a code we use. If we didn't have the key we wouldn't be able to recover the deleted call logs. No recordings, it was also programmed to prevent that."
"I bought that scroll for fifty lien at a bodega." I lied to him. "I have no idea what you are talking about, I've been using it for phone sex."
"Answer him!" Hardin snarled at me but Wyatt raised a hand and stopped him. It felt strange, these guys had been all thumb screws and hostility with me but now the demeanor had completely changed. I expected it to drop soon so we could return to them hurting me.
"Has asking that ever worked for you, you know, without spending hours torturing someone?" I asked him expecting him to actually start hurting me but nothing happened. Wyatt kept low and stared at me. He screwed off the cap of the water bottle and brought it back up to my lips letting me take another soothing gulp of the water.
"You're a former Beacon student." Wyatt said to me as he screwed the cap back on the water bottle and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his front pocket shaking out one and putting it to my lips before lighting it. "You were kicked out for forging your transcript."
I had gotten used to the richer, more full bodied flavor of the cigars but the thin cheap cigarette was a relief nonetheless. "That's no secret." I said to him, trying to pretend that he wasn't getting close to the truth.
"No it isn't." Wyatt said in agreement. "But I've spent months looking at you, rising through the ranks of the underworld… that's not an accident is it?"
I didn't say anything as I smoked the cigarette. I didn't like the direction this had taken. If anyone on the wrong side of the law learned the truth I was as good as dead.
Billy shook his head at me as I blew smoke out my nostrils. "He's not gonna talk sir, not like that."
"Of course he's not gonna talk like that." Wyatt said to him standing up. "None of us would."
"So what now?" The one who hadn't been named asked him.
"We're going to have to make a few calls, Butch." Wyatt said to him moving towards the door.
Above our heads I heard a muffled blast. The whole room trembled and dust specks rained down from the cement ceiling. They all stopped and looked up with expressions of surprise and worry. Billy touched his earpiece as I assumed reports started to come in.
"We're under attack." Billy reported. "Some truck busted through the front gate and exploded. Perimeter counted twenty hostiles with more on the way."
"Son of a bitch!" Hardin said drawing one of his pistols. "Who is it?"
"It seems like a gang right now… maybe the 24k Dragons." Billy reported to him.
The 24k Dragons? Was this a rescue? For a second my hope flared but I noticed how Hardin was looking at me with his pistol drawn. Rescue or not it seemed they were going to cap me off before they had a chance to pull me from the brink. But that wouldn't do me very much good if they shot me before my rescuers could reach me.
"Those two bit gang bangers are just cannon fodder." Wyatt said. "The Clan won't be far behind them."
"What do we do about him?" Hardin asked, pointing the pistol right at my head.
"One second, I need to make a call." Wyatt said, pulling out a scroll and dialing a number.
"Hello sir." Wyatt greeted stepping towards the corner. "We haven't been able to get any answers from the asset and this location is now compromised."
He listened for a long moment to the call and I could only wonder who it was on the other end giving the orders that would determine if I could live or die. I could hear the faint sounds of combat above my head. It sounded fierce and drawing closer. My heart was hammering in my chest.
"Understood sir… we're on it." Wyatt said before hanging up and giving me another appraising look. For a second I thought I saw sympathy in his eyes. "Get him up and put him back with the other prisoners. Hold the area while we evacuate through the lower levels."
"But sir." Hardin said, keeping the gun leveled at me but looking at his superior.
"Those are our orders, soldier." Wyatt said to him.
Hardin accepted the command and holstered the pistol. They uncuffed me from the metal chair and pulled me out. I felt like a ragdoll. Billy and Hardin draped my arms over my shoulders and hauled me out and down the hallway back to the little cells they had formed in there.
"Jaune!" I heard Anna cry moving right up to the bars and grab them watching as they moved me back into her cell. I moved my head around to the other cell seeing George and a few more of the other White Fang members huddled together looking at us nervously.
They opened the cell up and carried me inside. It was a bit of a surprise with how gentle they were suddenly being with me. They bound my hands once more behind my back and left me there in that dirty cell.
"Watch the prisoners!" Hardin ordered a couple of the other guys in there. "Defend this area if anyone tries to get in!"
I watched them leave keeping Limp Dick and others with us watching the doors with guns at the ready.
"Jaune… what's happening?" Anna said, crawling over towards me as I lay down on the floor. All manners of explosions and gunfire could be heard outside.
I turned to her and smiled my friendliest smile. "Anna… I want you to go over to your corner and lay down. Cover your ears and close your eyes, it's going to get loud and scary."
I expected her to barrage me with a dozen childish whys but instead she nodded firmly and obeyed like the smart kid she is. She curled into a little ball on the mess of dirty blankets that acted as her bed and stuck her fingers in her ears.
"What's going on?" George croaked from his cell. One of his floppy dog ears was cut to pieces and his eyes were practically bruised shut from having been beaten. And the number of White Fang members had dwindled to only a handful and they all looked far worse than me.
"Do you boys hear that!? That's the fucking calvary!" I told them with all the confidence I could muster up, with my voice hoarse and strained from screaming and curing I doubted it sounded confident at all.
"Be quiet!" Limp Dick ordered me but I ignored him. He wasn't going to shoot me and I knew it.
"They're going to bust in here any minute now! So get ready to leave and stay down when the bullets start flying!" I ordered them trying to get myself hyped up just as much as possible.
"I said shut up!" Limp Dick barked. He looked nervous as the sound of machine guns outside rattled.
"Make me motherfucker!" I growled at him. "You're all going to fucking die here! Every burst of gunfire is one of your fucking friends getting torn to shreds!"
The door to the hallway opened up again and Dipshit stepped inside along with Hardin. That hadn't been very long. I rolled on the ground awkwardly unable to use my hands to stand on legs that felt like jello.
"We're going to leave." Hardin told him. "Grab the girl and shoot the rest of the prisoners."
"Yes sir!" Dipshit said, grabbing his pistol and looking right at me.
"Not him!" Hardin told him firmly. "He stays in his cell."
"What!?" Dipshit exclaimed. "They're coming for him, aren't they!? We should make sure they can't get him, if we're not going to take him we should cap him right here."
"I didn't fucking ask for your opinion." Hardin told him. "Put the gun away and grab the girl."
Dipshit sighed in frustration and holstered his pistol and approached the cell door and unlocked it only to find me standing right in front of him through the bars. I wasn't going to sit back and let them take that girl.
"Step away!" He ordered me. The rest of the goons in there unslung their rifles but instead of executing George and the other White Fang prisoners they took a moment to stare at me. It was all the more reason to stand in his way, I was stalling an execution.
"What are you going to do if I don't asshole, shoot me?" I teased him.
He growled and put the keys back on his belt. "No but I can give you one more ass kicking before I go!"
He swung the cell door out violently, hoping to slam me with the steel bars but I was just out of range and I charged him with all the grace of a drunken bull. I couldn't use my hands so I just lowered my head, knocking him in the stomach with the top of my head and bringing it up to smash him under the chin.
It knocked him back but that was the only victory I managed to gain. I was weak and bound and Dipshit quickly recovered, bringing his leg up and kicking me right in the sternum.
I fell backwards, the back of my skull bounced against the concrete floor, Dipshit stepped right up and kicked and stomped me while I was laying helpless on the filthy floor. The rest of the goons in the room laughed at me, which I supposed was a good thing. It was better that everyone there was enjoying my misery instead of spraying the cells with gunfire. The things I do for other people.
"You fucking Valean bitch!" He screamed at me. "You should be dead motherfucker, dead, dead!"
"Stop it!" A feeble young voice said, it was Anna. She hadn't listened well to my instructions to stay down with her ears covered.
"Shut up!" I heard a smack and a cry that really pissed me the fuck off.
I tried to get up since he wasn't kicking me anymore. I was determined to bite his ankles if needed to but he quickly took notice of me struggling to get up and gave me a kick to the face.
Boom!
A thunderous ear splitting blast sounded, deafening everyone for a second. Acrid smoke from an explosion filled the air and I forced myself to look up with blurry eyes. It had come from the door to the hall, it had been blown wide open.
A shot rang out and Dipshit's head violently snapped back as a bullet passed through his skull. He went limp and fell down in a heap over me, literally dead weight. I struggled with his weight as two figures dressed in black burst through the smoke.
The goons opened fire only for one of them to raise two pistols and fired while avoiding the gun fire killing Limp Dick and others as the second rushed in towards Hardin who had drawn his two pistols and opened fire.
A familiar parasol opened up shielding the wielder from the shots.
Neo, she was here. My heart fluttered watching her. She was almost unrecognizable dressed in black with a balaclava covering her face and hair but I'd recognise that parasol and fighting style anywhere. She was here, I felt like I was watching an angel coming to save me. Despite the chaos and danger I had never felt happier or more relieved.
Hadin angled his pistols past the parasol aiming in two different directions, leveling one towards the other person firing at them forcing them to dodge and take cover while the other fired at the wall behind Neo.
The shots ricochet off the wall and hit Neo from behind damaging her aura.
Neo retreated, rolling away to cover herself as I struggled with the weight of Dipshit's corpse trying to get him off and find a knife or something to cut my bonds.
The other attacker rolled out with the pistols and Hardin fired missing as if he was shooting a sudden third opponent as a chain shot out of the weapons and wrapped around his ankles pulling him down.
Neo sprang forward with her parasol shielding her before driving Hush's blade down. It took a few thrusts before his aura broke and the blade pierced his heart killing him. His head fell back on the ground and in the sudden silence of the room I could hear his lungs release a final breath in a death rattle.
In the long moment of quiet Neo retrieved her blade and wiped the blood on a dark sleeve before looking at me. I looked at her brown and pink eyes through the holes in the balaclava.
"Hey Neo, good to see you." I said to her, feeling myself almost sob with relief.
"Come on, let's hurry!" The other person said moving right for the already unlocked cell door and opening it and stepping in. The red eyes and voice were familiar.
"Emerald?" I asked weakly, seeing the pistols closer as she rolled off Dipshit's corpse, I couldn't help but feel a cold sense of satisfaction seeing him and the rest of them all dead by her and Neo's hands. She freed one of the scythe blades from the pistol and cut the plastic restraints. "The fu-what are you doing here?" I asked her, cleaning up my language when I remembered that Anna was still here.
"We're square after this, right?" Emerald asked me, looking me in the eyes. The black clothes and masks were making it difficult to read but I had a feeling that my answer actually meant something to her.
I nodded and tried to stand up but I was far too weak. "Square? If you get me out of here alive you can choose whatever shape you want."
I looked over at Anna who had gone back to laying down with her eyes closed and her ears covered. I raised a shaking hand and pointed at her.
"The girl, Anna… she's coming with us." I told her as I tried to stand up again only to stumble. Emerald caught me and threw an arm over my shoulder helping me up. I hated my legs for being useless to me at that moment.
"I - got - her." Neo signed to me, stepping over to Anna and kneeling down before giving her shoulder a gentle touch. Anna looked up at Neo who pulled off her balaclava to show her face, a kind and rearming gesture for a scared little girl.
"It's alright Anna, she's a friend of mine, and she's here to help." I told her as Emerald helped me walk. Anna nodded to me and Neo offered her a hand. I could already see a black bruise swelling from where Dipshit had struck her. I gave his corpse another one last glance feeling pleasure at his death.
"I-I'm Anna." Anna told Neo, giving her her hand.
"Her name is Neo." I told Anna. "She can't speak."
"We don't have time for this, more might be coming and we need to leave." Emerald told the two of us as she let me lean against the wall for a second before taking the keys off of Dipshit's corpse and going to the White Fang cell and opening it.
"Who are you?" George asked, helping one of his comrades out of the cell as Emerald threw it open.
"None of your business, but we're getting you out of here." Emerald told him coldy. "But if you can walk then help Jaune there. We wouldn't even be here saving your sorry hides if it wasn't for him."
George nodded and moved, helping me up and looking at everything through the one eye that wasn't too swollen to see out of. I put a weak arm around him as we all started down the hallway I had been taken down to the interrogation rooms.
"What did they do to you?" George asked me.
"Nothing compared to what it seems they did to you." I told him, giving a look at his mangled dog ear. I was lucky they didn't decide to do anything worse than branding me on the back of my neck.
"I can at least walk." George told me.
"Fair enough." I admitted to him. I wouldn't have minded having an ear torn up just so I could walk on my own at that moment.
I looked at the door for that room and jumped as it opened. Emerald raised one of her pistols to the door only to find that she was pointing the gun right into Cardin's face.
"Jaune!" Cardin exclaimed, lowering the submachine gun he had raised up in response. "Thank the fucking gods your alive!"
Emerald lowered the gun and let Cardin approach us, taking me from George and pulling me into a tight hug. I was actually a little taken aback by the display of affection. Cardin may have become my best friend but he wasn't exactly the most touchy feely of friends.
"He's having trouble walking, his legs are weak." Emerald told him.
"I got him." Cardin said holding me with one arm while he held the machine gun with just one, propping the wooden stock under his arm. He looked over at Neo and Anna for a second. "What's a kid doing here?"
"Her name's Anna, she was my cellmate." I told Cardin, a cold bitterness in my voice.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" He asked me as the rest of my crew came out, along with Deery who I had not expected to see here with a gun in her hands.
"Fuck yeah you found him!" Dove exclaimed. His sword was dripping with blood.
"Language! There's a kid here." I told them.
They all chuckled at my expense.
"That's our Gent alright." Russel said with a toothy grin. He raised his hand, my revolvers were in their holsters and he had Astuzia and Vendetta tucked in his arm. "We found these… we couldn't find your gloves or special watch."
"Let's not worry about that, we're leaving." Emerald said in a take charge manner moving down the hall with her pistols at the reader.
We all moved as a group with me in the middle with the prisoners. Neo was taking her job of looking after Anna seriously and had picked her up letting the little girl bury her face in her shoulder. Which was a good thing because as we moved we stepped over corpses that had been shot up or cut with blades. It was gruesome and she had no business seeing anything like this. I lost count of the bodies I saw, I only looked at them with cold contempt. They had gotten what they deserved.
Occasionally we stopped and heard gunfire as they fought the goons that had completely filled this wreck of a place. I didn't see the fighting, I was hardly in any position to contrible and as we moved and as word got around that I and the rest of the prisoners were secured everyone started making for the roof.
The rundown place which I was later told was an old condemned brick factory was confusing with all kinds of corridors and rusted stairs. Some of the places were even collapsed leaving hallways or rooms filled with crumbled concrete and other rubble. But all around there were signs of people having lived there. Generators, cots, tables filled with food or decks of cards, all of it could be seen along with the corpses that had been gunned or cut down.
"How the hell did you find me in this place?" I asked as we moved. I was getting winded on the stairs and when my legs went out Cardin just picked me up. I felt embarrassed having to be carried out of there but Cardin dismissed my apologies. I was thankfully spared any judgement for being too weak to walk properly.
"We knew you were in basements." Cardin told me. "But past that we just had to search for you and kill anyone that got in our way."
"That's a lot of killing." I said to him.
"They were keeping an army here." Cardin told me. "But we'll talk about that later."
I nodded meekly as we reached the top of the stairs. "I can walk this." I told Cardin and he set me down onto my wobbly legs with his arm helping to keep me steady. The sound of footsteps approaching made me look up, spotting O-Ushi and the twins approaching us.
"Fuck kid!" O-Ushi exclaimed, looking me up and down. Her magnums were out, one still the heavy stainless steel revolver with the over shifted into its hammer form dripping with blood. "Who fucking did this to you?"
"If they're not dead they're probably gone." I said, not really caring much about vengeance at the moment. Looking at all the dead we had passed I couldn't help but wonder if Wyatt and the others with him had been killed like Hardin. But I doubted it, they were different from the rest and what's more they had evidence about my involvement with Ozpin.
"If they're alive I'll feed them their fucking balls!" Melanie said with a growl stepping up towards me and giving me a look up and down. "You look like hammered shit."
"Nice to see you too Mel." I said to her honestly. It really was sweet for her to swear vengeance on my behalf.
"What my sister means is that it's nice to see that you're alive." Miltia told me with a kind smile.
"I'm surprised so many are here… next thing you're going to be telling me that Junior came to the party." I said as we continued to climb up some precarious looking stairs.
O-Ushi laughed. "He did, kid. He's helping to blast these motherfuckers from the sky. I told you kid, I got your back, and that means the Clan has your back."
I nodded, feeling myself growing weaker and faint but unable to denty the touch of emotion in my chest. Cardin picked me up again as we ascended the final steps of the stairs. I felt light and weightless and when we got to the roof I felt too weak to protest about being carried anymore.
"We're on the roof sir." Cardin said into his bluetooth earpiece touching it as he carried me draped over one shoulder.
I looked out seeing the bullheads circling around. Indeed I did spot Junior from one leveling a fucking rocket launcher and firing volleys of rockets at anything that opposed him. Which now didn't seem like much. The violence it seemed had come swiftly and brutally and ended just as abruptly as it most likely started.
One of the bullheads swooped down kicking up dust on the roof making me squint as Cardin ran towards it. I noticed Sky was holding onto the end of a door mounted minigun.
"Come on!" Sky urged us. "We're out of here."
Cardin was the first one on followed by several more including Neo, Emerald and my crew. The rest stayed to get picked up by the other bullheads as Cardin put me into one of the seats. Neo sat down next to me with Anna still in her arms. She lowered the little girl into the seat next to her letting Anna stay close and leaned against her.
Neo gave me a long sad look almost as if she wanted to cry, I now noticed the dark circles under her eyes that usually looked bright and immaculate. "I'm - glad - you're - alive. I - thought - I - lost - you - Jaune."
I nodded to her numbly. I wasn't sure what to say to her and I was too tired to think of the right words to express my gratitude and relief. All kinds of thoughts whirled in my head. This wasn't quite over yet, but I couldn't think of much to say. The adrenaline that had spiked in me from the rescue was fading fast and there didn't seem to me much that demanded my attention. I was too tired to even get sick over the pilot's piss poor flying.
"How's Anna?" I asked her, trying to look past her and at the little girl.
Neo pushed me back. "She's - fine… I - think - she - fell - asleep."
It seemed like madness that she had been able to relax enough after that to fall asleep. But then again I had fallen asleep while being tortured. "She's been through a lot… more than a kid should go through."
"You've - been - through - a - lot - yourself." She told me with a sad shake of her head.
I nodded again in numb agreement with her. "Just take care of her… she helped me while I was in there."
Neo gave me a firm nod.
"How - do - you - feel?" She asked me. "Do - you - need - anything?"
I shook my head. "I don't know… I wouldn't say no to a doctor fussing over me, and some pain killers."
"We'll - get - you - those." She told me with a nod.
"But mostly... I'm exhausted. I just want to collapse." I said to her. "But I don't really know if I can. Does that make sense? Feeling too tired to rest?
She didn't say anything or try to answer my question. She decided to take action over words and leaned over, to give me a soft affectionate kiss to the side of my head before gently grabbing my shoulder and carefully pulling me down to rest my head comfortably on her lap while her fingers idly played with my hair. The rest of the bullhead was relatively quiet with only small bits of idle chattering going around about the battle that had just happened or other meaningless things.
I closed my eyes and listened to the whine of the engines and focused on the pleasant feeling of Neo's soft ungloved fingers through my filthy hair. It was still damp from when Dipshit had woken me up last.
My mind kept going back and dwelling on the whole experience, unable to be completely banished from my thoughts. The pain and fear and agony. I still felt it, the pain was still there. The wounds to my stomach and wrists still stung, but the fear was what I felt lingering the most. The shocks, the feeling of drowning. It was still quite vivid in my mind. The pain at least told me that I wasn't dreaming, this was real, I was rescued.
But laying my head on Neo's lap with my eyes closed it all started to feel muted. I just focused on the pleasant warmth of her thighs and the caress of her fingers. Eventually I drifted off into a pleasantly deep sleep filled only with good dreams.
Author's Note: I hope everyone enjoy's their Thanksgiving.
I hope you enjoyed this week's chapter and the end of this particular story arc. I am sorry that this chapter wasn't particularly long but I didn't think it would be right to extend this ending more than necessary. I do promise you that the next chapter will be both long and wholesome, a refresher from all the pain and misery of this latest arc. I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
I'll have you know that Wyatt's team I have all named after western outlaws and gunslingers. Wyatt is named after Wyatt Earp, the famous lawman. Billy is of course named after Billy the Kid and Hardin is named after John Wesley Hardin. Hardin's semblance was the ability to alter probability within his line of sight, letting him intentionally ricochet rounds and occasionally jam guns. I'll explain the one other member and their semblances in time.
Please review and share your thoughts and opinions on the story and how it is progressing. I read each and every review and they fuel me to get back in front my laptop again and again.
And as always I need to thank my Comittiee for all their help and support. Thank you MidKnightMoonglow99, TheSlySage, MajorBrony95, CrypidCobra, FireFly25, Cyperink, BigBrain411 and DrknssRules1 for all their help and support in this story making it what it is. And thank you to Rak-Vojak for translating this story into Russian so more people can read and enjoy it.