Chapter 10 : Prison Air
It was a stark building, minimalist even in its interior. The gray ferrocrete construction was a step above squalor, if only because the guards spent most of their time there. Dirty walls, hallways were illuminated only by the blue mercury-vapor lights. The metal doors along the path led to cells, at least , the guards could only faintly recall them as cells, they'd never seen a prisoner's face through the pitch black darkness inside the cells.
"Heard the news?" said the officer that patrolled the halls with another, his voice muffled somewhat by the balaclava he wore, as part of his body armor.
The comment shook the other man out of the stupor of alertness, "About the first one? Yeah."
They watched that hallway always on edge, rifles and shotguns in hand, always expecting a breakout that would never come. The cameras in the corners would've caught any suspicious relaxation of security measures, and, as they came to find, their superiors were completely willing to imprison the very guards that watched the place, were they not up to par in their duties.
In the need for idle chat, the first officer continued, "I heard the General is putting him on trial tomorrow."
The second man chuckled, "Because of those messages we got?"
"Damn right. Increasing security even more, telling us to be on our Ps and Qs, to expect Specialists?"
"I say fuck 'em. Throw me in the slammer for all I care, I'm not rolling out the noble carpet for some pompous-" He stopped when the first man tapped his shoulder. Of course, even though the spot they were in was safer than most, the walls had ears of their own.
He continued, "Anyways, you think it's going on T.V?"
"Probably. It was like that with the council."
"Fuck me, we won't even get a day off-"
A violent blast shook both men out of their chat, gray concrete dust filled the air, stinging their eyes and obscuring what little vision they had in the corridor.
"W-…. ha-…penned-… ! …"
"Can't- … fu-... Hear you!"
Their voices were faint, their ears ringing from the explosion, both men quickly realized their condition, both through how faint their voices felt and the warm liquid that ran down out of their ears and down their necks that both were deafened.
Before the first man could run to the nearest alarm, he fell to the ground, at the second's side. The remaining officer aimed his shotgun blindly. Nothing, not even the faint shape of an intruder. He swiveled on his feet at the first step he heard behind him, there was… A girl? Diminutive in size, the kind of girl he could've mistaken for a very young teen, in the moment of hesitation, where confusion as to how a kid had made it into a top security prison stopped him before he could even pull the trigger, she stabbed a thin blade through the smoke and his chest.
In shock, all of his muscles seized before he lost all strength. The officer fell to his knees, grasped the collar of his assassin as he collapsed, and saw her half brown, half pink hair that framed the jovial, almost innocent face that smiled at him.
When Neopolitan pulled her blade out of the man's chest, he expired. She flashed her blade to the side in a snap, cleaning the hidden sword and spraying the wall with the man's blood in one move.
As the dust settled, Neo sheathed the blade in the parasol guard, grabbed the man's rifle and double checked his face under the balaclava, and yanked his identification card from his dustproof vest. There were useful gadgets on the man: night-vision goggles, extra ammo, all useful, she packed them away on a pouch on her belt. Neo used one of the many facets her Semblance enabled, projecting an illusory layer on her body. To any outside observers, she and that man looked exactly alike.
The explosion she detonated had opened a hole in the wall, and such was a perfect place to throw both officers' bodies. They'd be discovered, obviously, but she only needed the momentary confusion, and dragging them was quick and easy, with the benefit of Aura enhancement.
Steps echoed across the hallway, more guards approached. This, she knew, was trivial, merely the first line of defense in many. She aimed the shotgun at the lights, squeezed the trigger, quickly shooting them out one by one. As reinforcements approached, Neo prepared herself, put on the dead officer's goggles, faced her back to the wall and aimed the shotgun, feigning blindness.
Perhaps she could spare the others.
If there was one thing she had to internally admit about the officers they'd employed in that one covert prison, it was that they were certainly very disciplined, painfully so. Six men entered the hallway in pairs, searching, the six lenses of the night vision goggles pierced through the dark.
"Jenkins!" the leading officer said. "Report!"
Ah, talking would prove to be a challenge Neo could not overcome. So much for sparing them.
One benefit of her semblance was that the illusion and her own body were independent. She could simply step out of the empty shell, unseen and unheard, and so she did, all the while making the projection of the officer pretend he hadn't heard the leader.
"Don't test me Jenkins! Covert codes, now!" the leader barked
The moment the words left the leader's mouth, Neo stabbed her blade through his neck, and as it pierced she projected an illusion of herself, leaving it behind as she moved elsewhere. The guards fired, bullets pierced the illusion and shattered it into pieces.
Before the men could get their bearings, she attacked again, the next time stabbing the point of her blade through the eyes of the man at the very back. Four remained.
It was one of the more dangerous moments, as the men realized they were being picked off. The four guards all gathered into a circle, back to back once more. They fired simultaneously, spraying gunfire on their surroundings in the vague hope they might hit their assailant. Neo simply ducked and weaved past the men, into the circle where their backs all faced eachother.
In one move, she brandished her sword in arc, severing the backs of their necks. The guards fell to the floor like puppets with their strings cut.
Neo sheathed her blade on the parasol guard, twirled it around once as she conjured an illusion of the officer once more, casually stode down the hallway. The fight ahead would be a metaphorical marathon, there was no need to strain herself so soon, neither in Aura or in body.
The corridors of the prison made Neo recoil internally, not even the Mistralian prisons, crowded and corrupted as they were, had such offensive odor, acrid rot thick in the air. Perhaps after such a long time in the place the guard had grown used to it. Such a noxious crypt, but at least, unlike medieval chambers, the maps of the place was as expected from the intel given by her benefactor, a grid layout, with one elevator at the center, and six underground levels.
Each more prepared than the last.
Deliberately avoiding the corridors where guards raced to the area she breached, Neo made her way to the center of the floor she was in. The checkpoint guard, at that point, would likely be on high alert.
She approached the post, a door within bars that obrusted the passage, only one dustproof glass window to the side exposed the guard that awaited her, and behind it, the stairs to the lower levels, no elevators there.
"It's me.," Neo subtly signaled, never dropping the disguise.
One loud buzz later, the door opened. It was funny to Neo, in a way. Bribing the guard to open the door once, when she made that signal? It was so easy. The Atlesians checked and double checked any Faunus they employed to the point of paranoia, they'd never done the same to the humans.
Now. Where is that one prisoner?
There was a chance she'd have to look floor by floor, the prisoners thrown into that place weren't ever recorded into any database or archive. Such a drag, It'd only slow her down, and it was likely one type of security measure, if she could call it that. Meaningless in the face of what her Semblance could do, but annoying nonetheless.
The lower floor, paradoxically and expectedly had some amount of relaxed security, no checkpoints and fewer guards. She quickly realized why, as the pair of automated turrets — rifles with inbuilt cameras mounted into the walls — came to life, pointed at her illusion.
Neo sighed, such a bore, fighting those lifeless machines.
As the turrets fired, she opened her parasol, in reality a shield, reinforced inconspicuously by gravity dust. The bullets simply ricocheted off the umbrella, harmlessly. She ran their way, jumped at the wall, then leaped and chopped the turrets from the walls, cutting them from their source of bullets. Even as they laid on the ground the rifles clicked continuously, attempting to fire.
The map she'd been given told her it might've been the barracks. Given that whatever sensors the turrets responded to hadn't recognized her as one of the guards. A likely theory, she hadn't stopped there to search.
Neo pulled a handful of metallic spheres from the pouch at her belt as she retreated to the stairs. The spheres, she remembered, were highly refined fire and Gravity explosives, detonated by distance sensors once she activated them.
Sorry, but I can't let you get in my way today, she thought. Whatever poor guard tried to cross the threshold would have an unpleasant end.
She knew where to go, and the man she was looking for, oh he was a piece of work alright.
"Look alive boys!" Roman bellowed into the engine room, his voice barely pushing through the sound of heavy machinery working overtime.
The entire contraption of a vehicle rumbled, the rhythmic noise of pistons, hydraulics and the six wheels outside the tundra strider, a name he'd come to appreciate. Roman would've preferred a more conspicuous vehicle, but his benefactor hadn't really left him any space for negotiation. Still, the efficacy of the creation was undeniable, large and yet efficient, able to traverse the tundra during a raging snowstorm, either undetected or unhindered by Grimm, and it could regulate and recycle heat, so the crew wouldn't literally freeze solid.
That was one problem there, the cold in Solitas was enough to freeze a man's eyeballs within seconds if they didn't have Aura to protect them. So most smugglers like him turned to innovations such as the one he currently resided in.
Roman only wished it didn't look like a giant lumbering bunker. All function, no form, minimalism was so… overrated would be one word but he found that Atlesian fit better.
He jostled through the crew that hurried in the tight corridors, on his way to the pilot chamber. "If any of you forget to put on the dustsuits I will leave you on the snow! Do you hear me?" he bellowed.
The warning was harsh, but necessary. Should he not make sure they were properly equipped, Roman would lose men, and given his past experiences in Vale he was in no rush to repeat the experience.
He opened the heavy metal door of the cockpit, the wide windows were completely covered by snow, even as the cleaning system pushed it off within moments. The pilot, it seemed, was guiding the strider purely via the sonar on the panel. A skilled man, Roman had to admit it, so he made a mental note, to give him a couple extra thousand Lien once the mission was over. Couldn't lose that one to a competitor.
"Are we on time?" Roman asked.
"Yes," the pilot replied, his voice muffled by the helmet, "Are you sure about speeding up? They installed a Dust wall."
"Do it. We'll be in and out before that thing comes back online."
Roman hurried out to the cabin at the back of the oversized land vehicle, where the sectioned wall would be opening soon. It was a spacious place, reminded him of an airship's cargo bay, no doubt due to the stacked boxes that held their ration, extra weapons and ammunition. Waiting, were his best men, quick, smart, and above all, they were all ex-military. They perked up as he approached.
The Strider shook, the walls and floor resounded violently. It had begun.
The sections of the wall folded into the ceiling and a hard rush of cold air took over the entire, a wave of snow engulfed the space as men ran out to a courtyard, pointing their guns. Through the thick fog and snow roman could see the sparks of Dust coming from the poles that once served as emitters for the Dust wall of the prison. There was the glow of spotlights coming from watchtowers, searching, but not for them.
The gunfire gave it away, they were firing at Neo, he knew.
Roman simply smiled, "Go! Keep them occupied, thirty seconds! Whoever lasts longer gets a thousand extra!"
The men hurried out, firing as they blended into the fog and snow. Roman would've followed them… but he didn't feel the need to. Planting his cane on the metal floor of the Strider, he counted the seconds as he waited.
…Twenty-eight… Twenty nine…
A figure! The first to return from the prison courtyard revealed themselves as they paced inside, a small figure… Neopolitan revealed herself, holding their mark on her shoulders. The man was clearly malnourished, almost emaciated from the stay at the lovely atlesian dungeon, his hair and beard had grown long and wild.
Thankfully, it seemed as if his prosthetics still worked. Good, Roman wouldn't be pulling thousands from his own money to replace those.
As Neo laid the man down on the floor near a couple of boxes, Roman followed her, "Thank you dear. What would I do without you?"
Neo offered him a curtsy, "Teamwork makes the dream work," she said in the universal Remnant sign language.
Roman nodded, "Indeed. And in our line we make the strangest of allies…" he sat himself next to the man, the target of their mission that they'd been paid so handsomely to rescue, like the roguish heroes of old tales.
"Wouldn't you say so, General Ironwood?"
