The sound hit like a physical wave, the roars of orks, scream of energy weapons, and the thunder of heavy guns buffeted Blake; her ears instinctively pinning themselves to her head. She growled, ducking and weaving through the storm of fire the mech threw at her with reckless abandon. It was wasting ammo. What few shots might have hit her instead pinged off her blade, deflected with ease.
She closed in, eyeing the mech's legs with focus. That armor looked tough, but joints were always vulnerable. Mere feet away, the mech finally stopped trying to shoot her and instead clanged forward, buzz saws and power claws flashing and hissing. She braced as she came within arms reach, preparing to dodge any one of the rickety limbs, but the mech had a different surprise for her.
Her only warning was the slight fwoosh of pressurized air, and suddenly a wall of flames erupted before her. Her eyes widened and she lurched backward in a panic, conjuring an ice clone as cover. The flames washed over it and then her with an almost palpable hunger, greedily tearing away at her Aura with grasping claws of searing heat. Gambol Shroud flashed, soaring through the air towards the ceiling. The moment Blake felt her weapon anchor she jumped and tugged herself away from the inferno. The mech saw her and lashed out, claws attempting to grab her right out of the air.
Whether it would have been fast enough to do so will forever be unknown, as instead the mech was knocked off-course by a series of explosives slamming into its side.
Yang rocketed straight through the flames with force, unleashing a furious barrage of explosive punches. The machine flailed, stumbling back in the face of the unrelenting assault. Armor cratered and shattered, internals crumpled, a limb went flying. For a moment it looked like the bout was done then and there, but with a roar the machine burst forward, headbutting the huntress into the ground so hard the tiled floor shattered under the impact. She laid there, dazed, as the mech lifted an armored boot to crush the girl in a single last blow.
But Yang's eyes cleared at the last moment, and she clenched her fists. Instead of ending her, the mech was sent stumbling back as the half-dozen stick grenades attached to its body detonated all at once. As the mech flailed yet again Blake took her chance and rejoined the battle, her ribbon firmly wrapping itself around the machine's legs.
With a creaking groan the mech toppled back, impacting the ground with an echoing boom. Immediately Yang was on it, hammering shell after explosive shell into it, the ground around the two cracking from the force of the blows. Blake wasn't idle either, her blade digging into every exposed joint she could find, shredding the vulnerable internals within.
The mech made one last desperate attempt at victory. Its chest-mounted flamethrower activated anew, sending a blazing inferno directly into Yang's face. The resulting conflagration easily concealed the huntress beneath the burning flames, and with a triumphant creak it slashed with its last remaining limb, intending to gore the roasted human.
It abruptly halted halfway in a firestorm.
The flames guttered out with a muted hiss, the inferno dissipating in an instant to reveal Yang holding back the spinning buzz saw with both hands, the two visibly straining against the other. The saw sputtered and roared, eager for her blood, but her grip was iron. With the sound of grinding metal Yang bent the weaponized limb, and with a dreadful crack something critical snapped, the saw quickly sputtering to a halt. Twisting away she delivered a single powerful uppercut to the arm, utterly shattering the limb into pieces.
The mech roared and twisted and raged, but all three knew it was too damaged to do anything more. Blake walked up, and with a contemptuous thrust stabbed deep into the machine's armor, seeking to silence the monster for good. But even shattered, its armor was too thick for the blade to punch all the way through on its own. When the mech's thrashing didn't cease, Yang quickly hammered the blade deeper, her fist a makeshift mallet.
That did the trick, the mech finally falling still with a muffled groan.
Taking a moment to catch their breath, the two started as they realized it wasn't just their opponent who had gone quiet. Glancing around the room revealed a sight that, even with their disagreements, elicited a shock of sorrow.
The stormtroopers were dead.
They were scattered around the room, none of their bodies resembling anything intact. They were torn in half by ork cannons, mulched by hammers, burned by flamethrowers, shredded by buzz saws, and crushed by cranking claws.
But their foes weren't looking much better.
All four Meganobz were utterly eviscerated. Two were little more than seared giblets, focused on and brought down by dozens of plasma shots. Another had been lured into a side corridor which was then collapsed onto the ork, then blasted with a few krak grenades for good measure. The last seems to have been blinded, drowned, and crippled in hellfire and then finished off at close range, several bayonets sticking out of the skull.
"...At least they went down with a fight," Blake offered.
Yang shook her head dejectedly, "Fucking beasts," she muttered.
They may have been assholes, but no one deserves to die like this.
"Come on," Blake said, "We'll finish this, for them."
"Yeah," Yang replied, considering, "In fact…"
She walked over towards one of the fallen stormtroopers, reaching down to pick up the man's plasma gun. "Here," she said, tossing the gun to Blake. The Faunus caught it, arching an eyebrow.
"Figured we could use the extra firepower," the blonde said in answer to her unspoken question, "Now help me find the other one, it should be somewhere around here…"
The two soon found the second plasma gun, but as they turned to leave a series of wet coughs interrupted them. Exchanging a glance, the Huntresses hurried over to the sound's origin.
Arriving at the corpse of the Meganob with a bayonet in its skull, Yang reached down and shoved the ork's body to the side, revealing the sergeant, half dead.
Yang reached to help him, but Blake grabbed her by the shoulder. When the Blonde turned to her with confusion, she nodded her head towards the sergeant's lower half.
Or more accurately, his lack of one.
Yang's shoulders slumped and she crouched down to meet the man's eyes.
"Can you hear me?" she asked.
He let out a wet cough, spitting out some blood, "Could be better."
"I'm sorry," Blake apologized, "You're going to bleed out, and there's nothing we can do. We… you've got minutes. At best."
He grunted, "Figured."
Yang's fists clenched, "Do you want us to get it over with?"
He tried to wave the suggestion away, but his hand barely twitched, "No, it not hurt. 'Sides, I got one last job. You help."
The two exchanged a glance.
"What do you need us to do?"
He coughed again, spewing even more blood, "Only listen," he rasped out, voice getting weaker by the moment, "Plan- city collapse soon. Will cripple horde, but not destroy it. Warboss must die. You understand? Warboss must die. We... can't survive... two."
Blake glanced confusedly at Yang as he slumped, seemingly exhausted. Receiving a clueless look in response, she reached down to gently shake the stormtrooper, "Survive two? What do you mean two?"
But the sergeant was gone, muttering softly as he faded away.
{Emperor, you came for me…}
The elevator activated with an echoing groan, beginning its slow, creaking journey to the Gargant's control room. The two Huntresses on board were silent, hefting their new but unfamiliar weapons with unease, gazing at the desecrated interiors as they rose higher and higher. The lift felt empty.
After a moment, Yang broke the silence.
"That was… intense."
"Yeah," Blake responded, dejected.
"What do you think about the 'two of them' statement?"
She shook her head, shrugging, "I honestly don't know. Nothing good I'd guess."
Yang was silent for a moment more, looking like she wanted to say something, but stopped each time. The lift was quiet for minutes more.
Finally, Yang seemed to give up, instead deciding to ask a different question, "Something wrong with Gambol Shroud?"
"What?" Blake asked, caught off guard by the unexpected inquiry.
"Gambol Shroud. You keep glancing at it. Anything wrong?"
Blake shook her head, "No nothing's wrong, it's just… it's just," She paused, collecting her thoughts, "I shouldn't have it,"
"What do you mean?" Yang asked.
"I mean the last time I saw it, it was still in the Ever After... it wasn't with me when I fell."
"Think the fight knocked it off later?"
"Maybe," Blake responded, tone doubtful. Glancing at Yang, she asked a question of her own, "What about you? That mech gave you a beating."
Yang rubbed her shoulder, working out a kink, "Yeah, no joke, that thing hurt."
"How's your Aura?"
"On the lower end," she admitted, "Semblance is charged though. Want me to use it first thing? Try to end the fight quick?"
Blake gave her a dry look, "And leave you completely defenseless if the Warboss manages to survive? Yang Xiao Long, I did not follow you to another planet just to lose you all over again."
Yang let out a small chuckle, "Yes mom. Don't use my Semblance unless I need to."
"Good," Blake affirmed, smirking, but her gaze then softened, eyes sorrowful and distant, "Good…" she repeated, softly.
Yang frowned, worried, but the lift clanged as it neared the top and she tore her gaze away to prepare.
"Good," Blake repeated, voice a whisper.
The lift halted with a rumble, accompanied by the grinding of metal on metal as the door to the Gargant's control room opened. The sight revealed was mechanical chaos; wires, pipes, and machinery smoking and sparking as errant electricity danced between the exposed circuits. The only area not obscured by mismatched buttons and switches was a large opening overlooking a view of utter carnage, the battle below a terror to behold.
...Presumably this opening was to be the viewport, though it lacked the needed windows at the moment.
The room was disorganized enough to demand more than a few seconds to process, but the two Huntresses found their eyes quickly drawn towards the center of the chaos regardless. A throne dominated the epicenter of the chamber, and seated upon it was the single largest ork they had yet seen.
Even slumped on its throne, it towered an intimidating eleven feet, garbed in a chunk of metal that looked more like a small mech than a suit of armor. It eyed them as they walked into the room, letting out a grunt as they stopped a good distance away from him. The monstrous ork studied them a moment more, before letting out a chuckle.
{Youz it? Youz scrawny tings? Ya 'killed ma boyz? Day musta been more pathetic den I thought. I'z was look'n forz a fight wit 'some Space Marines! Not ya weak runts. }
The Warboss stood and waved at the mechanical abomination around them.
{Ya see dis 'umie? Dis iz 'da powa uv 'da WAAAGH! MY WAAGH! Ya git it? Dis 'ere planet iz 'da prop'erty of Warboss Gargit da Gitsplitta! WAAAAAAA-Bleegh}
The Warboss's speech was rudely interrupted as two plasma bolts slammed into his face, blowing away his jaw armor in a searing blue flash and sending him stumbling back. Several more followed soon after, the two Huntresses content to pepper him from afar. He roared in rage, reaching over and grabbing the nearest piece of machinery and hurling it at the humans.
They didn't stop firing as they jumped to the side, dodging the flying hunk of circuits, only to find the Warboss charging right at them with alarming speed. He swung a metal-clad fist with a wild roar, both his opponents ducking under the heavy blow but caught off-guard by the subsequent booster-enhanced shoulder-check. Well, one of them anyway. Blake managed to squirm out of the way, but Yang was brutally slammed into the wall with a thunderous crash. When the massive ork's arm retracted, Yang was unmoving, thoroughly embedded in the wall.
{HAHAHAHAHA! WEAK 'UMIES}
Blake snarled, aiming to unload another volley of plasma bolts into the Warboss's back. But after only a single shot the gun stopped, spitting and sputtering for a second before the glow within shifted, becoming nearly blinding in its intensity. Blake stared at the malfunctioning weapon in alarm, before flinging it at the Warboss as fast as she could.
She succeeded, partially.
The weapon detonated between the two, heat washing over the both of them. The Warboss flinched, armor sloughed off in molten clumps. Blake was tossed back, her Aura flashing as it painfully repelled the intense heat.
The Warboss turned to her, grin all teeth.
{Dat stung little 'umie. Dat all youz got?}
She snarled in response, pulling out Gambol Shroud with a click.
{HAHAHAHA! Youz call dat a chappa?}
He reached behind him and proceeded to pull out a mace bigger than she was, pressing a button on the hilt. With a hiss of power a hazy field encompassed the weapon, static energy dancing across the head of the cruel armament. He grinned, giving it a few experimental swings with a single hand.
{Dis 'erez a chappa!} He gleefully shouted, leaning in with a grin, {And itz bigger dan your'z}
With an earth-shaking roar the beast charged, Blake meeting him halfway as a black blur. He swung repeatedly, cratering the ground with each crushing blow. Blake dodged each one, ducking and weaving between the bludgeoning weapon and the Warboss's own bulk with carefully calculated grace, striking back with deft blows of her own.
And yet, despite the success of her attacks and the lack of the same from the Warboss, she wasn't accomplishing anything. The massive ork's armor absorbed each blow with ease, uncaring of whatever little damage might get through.
'Time for a new stratagy.'
As the next blow thundered towards her, she grabbed a smidgen of her available burn Dust and conjured a clone to take the hit instead of her. The crushing impact smashed apart the partly incorporeal form and thus disrupting the burn Dust within. Explosively.
The sudden detonation surprised the Warboss, sending him stumbling back. Blake took the opportunity, swinging herself onto the beast's back and began hacking away at the armor protecting his neck.
The Ork roared, reaching up to seize the pesky Faunus, but the blocky nature of his own armor worked against him. Blake danced atop the ork, dodging his grasping hands with ease as she continued to cut into the steadily weakening armor.
Finally the Warboss grew a brain and dropped back, attempting to crush the Faunus with his sheer bulk. Blake, though frustrated she didn't get through the armor before he figured it out, was nevertheless prepared for this eventuality and simply jumped off as he threw himself back. The ork fell, crushing nothing and nobody with a thunderous boom. Snarling in rage, he moved to rise from the ground only for a stone copy of Blake to fall onto his face, shattering on impact.
It didn't do much damage, but it did really piss him off.
Furious, he tossed the rocks aside and stood to his full height, staring down the Faunus with burning eyes.
{Youz… you'z dare? I'z go'na use you'z skin as a sac for me'z trophies, MAGGOT!}
Blake glanced behind him and arched an eyebrow.
"And yet..."
There was a crunch and the sound of squealing metal followed by a snap, and the Warboss let out another earthshaking roar. But for once, this roar was one of pain rather than rage.
The Ork collapsed to a knee, almost stumbling as it tried to look behind it. With a growled snarl, Yang tore her fist from the crushed remains of the Warboss's leg, her eyes deep crimson and flames spewing from her figure. She let out a roar of her own as she jumped high, super-powered fist unleashing an explosion of flame and force as it impacted the Warboss's exposed jaw.
Teeth and bone shattered, blood and flesh pulped, and a WAAAGH's voice was silenced.
The Warboss rapidly stumbled back, blinking away pain, his mace falling from his numbed hands, the weapon deactivating with a muted hum. The beast tried to roar, but no sound emerged, his lower jaw simply gone. The ork began to choke, shards of bone and metal having bit deep into his ruined throat, crimson blood pouring from the wound.
Any other being would have given up then, crippled by pain and laid down to die, bleeding and choking to their last breath. But Gargit da Gitsplitta was a true Warboss, and even as he died, he determined to wreak bloody vengeance on his killers.
He shrugged off the pain and hardened his gaze, his rage a perfect anesthetic. The massive ork charged one last time, fists seeking to crush the two Huntresses with a single mighty blow. Blake's pistol rang, the Warboss's eyes popping as the bullets tore into them. But the beast was unfazed, continuing to charge with focused fury.
The two's eyes widened in alarm and they rapidly dodged away. Blinded, the ork couldn't find them or follow, but continued his rampage regardless, smashing anything he came into contact with.
Blake regarded the berserk ork with concern, sending a worried glance at Yang. The ork was flailing, and its attacks were all but random. There'd be no way to approach it safely for a killing blow.
For her part, Yang's Semblance was almost burned out by now, but she still had enough juice for one last task. She turned to Blake and tilted her head towards an object on the ground, finger to her lips. Blake eyed the object with an arched eyebrow, but a second glance at the raging ork convinced her. She nodded.
Yang grinned, and with a roar she counter-charged the ork Warboss. The beast silently snarled, immediately honing in on the sound of the yelling girl. The two rapidly closed in on each other, and with a bloody, gurgled and broken laugh the Warboss's fists smashed down on the Huntress, only for Yang to match and grapple them with her own.
The Warboss growled wetly, slowly pushing down on the human. Yang gritted her teeth, straining against the pressure but slowly failing, her eyes still crimson but the glow of her hair diminishing. She looked up at the ork, glaring in defiance. The beast snarled through his throat, pushing harder yet, and with a groan Yang was forced to a knee, lilac leaking back into her eyes.
"Blake," she bit out, her flame now sputtering, "Any. Time. Now. Please!"
The Warboss grunted an unintelligible question, one which Blake promptly answered. An unmistakable hiss sounded out, and the Warboss's gaze shot to the noise in alarm. He stepped back, releasing his hold on Yang without a second thought and moved to place his arm before his head as fast as he could.
But he was too late, and with an almost gleeful crackle his own mace slammed down into his skull, the power weapon vaporizing armor as easily as flesh and bone. The ork's head burst like an overripe melon, leaving the corpse to wobble unsteadily. Blake left the weapon embedded in the body, jumping away with pleased grace.
The body wobbled for a moment more, as if unable to believe it was defeated, before tilting back with a slow groan. It slammed into the ground with one last thunderous crash, and all was silent.
The damned ork was finally dead.
Blake spared only a moment to catch her breath, immediately running to Yang and frantically checking the other girl over. Yang waved her off, gasping for breath. She paused, closing her eyes, and with a pop her Aura shattered, the glow in her hair fading away. When she opened her eyes they had returned to her mundane lilac.
"That," she gasped out, still breathing hard, "was too close."
"Are you alright? Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine Blake, just exhausted," she replied, stretching her back with a groan, but suddenly stopped with a yelp, "goddamnit, make that sore as hell too."
"You sure you're ok Yang? We can take a break and rest if you need to," Blake asked, worry evident in her tone.
"No, no I'm good. Let's get this done," she assured, quickly standing up and strolling over to the Warboss's body.
Blake eyed her, unconvinced, but nevertheless got up and followed her.
Yang arrived at the body, examining it with a frown. Pausing, she glanced back over at Blake with a raised eyebrow, "Hey, did you understand anything this guy said to us?"
"Nope," Blake answered, coming to stand next to the other Huntress. She paused, looking over the Warboss with pursed lips, silently glancing between it and the battle far below.
"What now?"
Yang hummed, chewing her lip as she contemplated the corpse. It had fallen right next to the empty viewport overlooking the siege underneath them, almost hanging off the platform.
She shrugged and reached down to give the body a shove. With a wet slop it slid off the platform, falling right out of the Gargant's control room down towards the conflict raging below. The two Huntresses watched it fall, quickly losing sight of it in the chaos of the battle.
For a moment nothing seemed to happen, and the two exchanged concerned glances, but soon after their wish came true.
It started small. A one-on-one duel between the two Nobs who first discovered the body. Then their boys joined in, turning it into a firefight. Then more Nobs and their boys joined in. Then even more, and more, and more. Less than a minute later a wave of violence was sweeping through the horde's ranks, spreading faster than the greediest wildfire.
The sight galvanized the humans, their lines tightening immediately, their fire obliterating any ork unlucky enough to be within a few hundred meters. And, for the first time since the siege began, swarms of orks didn't immediately refill the holes left by their deceased kin, too busy slaughtering each other as they were.
As the two watched, whistles sounded out across the human lines, and they began to... retreat?
"What are they doing?" Yang demanded, "There's nowhere to go!"
But Blake didn't respond, her sharp Faunus eyes peering through the smoke at the colossal building the humans had based their defenses around.
"Yang," she said, eyes widening, "that's not a building, that's a-"
She was interrupted as an all-encompassing roar buffeted the entire battlefield, the sound so dominating it physically shook the surrounding buildings. In the distance a wall of white-hot flame, kilometers across, shot out from the rear of the structure, the heat from the mountain of fire washing over the city like a second sun. With an echoing groan the "building" began rising from the ground, crawling higher and higher into the sky with every passing second.
"-it's a ship," Blake breathed, eyes wide as can be as the multi-kilometer vessel stopped to hover over the city.
"Dear gods," Yang uttered, eyes just as wide, "today is just utterly ridiculous."
As the two watched, a swarm of smaller craft began exiting the mighty vessel, swooping back down to the city, landing amidst the defending army. The soldiers immediately began boarding the craft with haste, the line drastically shrinking as pockets opened up.
"Oh god," Blake realized, the two glancing at each other in alarm, "They're planning to leave! We need to get down there!"
"Jump for it!" Yang yelled, and did just that, Blake only milliseconds behind her.
The wind rushed past their ears as they hurtled down the hundreds-meter-long drop. As the ground came ever closer, they quickly scoped out good landing spots and prepared to, as Professor Ozpin had once said, "come up with their own landing strategy", but their plans were rather drastically derailed as the world quite literally descended into chaos.
The buildings around them, and seemingly everywhere they looked fatally shuddered as explosions erupted deep in their bowels. In an instant, every building across the entirety of the newly-formed no man's land simultaneously began collapsing in a storm of ceramite and steel.
The two Huntresses suddenly found their paths choked with flying debris and panicking, airborne orks. They launched into action, frantically dodging, swinging, and swooping through the seemingly unending swarm of detritus and rubble.
'Shit,' Blake thought, 'the soldiers really don't want anything to interrupt their withdrawal.'
After what felt like an eternity of skin of the teeth dodges they finally spotted the ground below them, and with a few choice kicks and punches arrested their momentum, allowing them to land with relative softness only to immediately launch into a breakout sprint towards the human lines.
They were nearly blind, the dark of smoke blocking any sunlight that might have peeked through the falling debris. They were exhausted, a day of near-constant sneaking and fighting wearing them down, continuing only through pure adrenaline. And they were close to panicked, the sheer scale of destruction, committed so suddenly, combined with the day's events fraying their nerves to the breaking point.
But they were also focused. Panic bowing to instinct, instinct bowing to training, training bowing to experience. The overall picture didn't matter. The battle didn't matter. The day's events didn't matter. The memories didn't matter. The sounds didn't matter. The sights didn't matter. The blood didn't matter. The death didn't matter.
All that was important was what was right in front of them. The goal and the obstacles before them. The human line, and a storm of detritus. Memories and thoughts and fears and terror could wait, the here and now was all there was, all that mattered.
And so, both covered in dust and one in scratches, the two emerged through the smoke and storm to the sight of lines of evacuating soldiers. Met with incredulous shouts of {civilians!} and {survivors!} the two were immediately and frantically shoved onto a transport and shot off towards the hovering vessel with nary a question nor protest.
The two were passed out before the transport landed.