Cover by /u/JazzRen47
They left under the cover of night. Luck was in their favor, having given them a moonless and cloudy night. The four of them had left at midnight from a machine gun nest. Each of them had moved in silence, jumping from shell hole to shell hole with ease. The Commander had given them cover a few miles down with a ruthless artillery barrage that was drawing forces away from this part of the enemy line.
Not that it was easy. For a few hours they had to lay down in freezing snow while search flares were shot up into the air. They'd all seen night missions go up in flames because of those flares. But when they passed, the soldiers began moving again.
There was once a beautiful landscape out in the tundra. Tortuga could remember it well, visiting some of the frozen lakes as a child and going ice skating. There were hills here, lives here.
They traveled across mud and ice. Vine slipped several times trying to jump from shell hole to shell hole and had to be carried out by Glaci from time to time as well. The air carried a crisp scent, one of winter's throes. It was a chilling feeling.
Galehorn stepped into a mushy mud pile, grumbling when her boot refused to budge after pulling on it. To her horror, when she went to grab her own boot, she saw that it wasn't mud she'd stepped in but the rotting carcass of an Atlesian soldier. She could tell by the gun the corpse was clutching to.
Feldgrau rushed back and helped her comrade out of the body and the mud so that they could keep moving. Getting stuck in one place could expose them with one unlucky flare.
Finally, they reached the trench. Rather than heading straight into the Thicket from the front as Glaci wanted, Tortuga drew up a plan to infiltrate a less defended position and go around the Thicket.
Tortuga motioned for the Specialists to stay low and on the ground as he crawled up to the edge of the trench line. There would absolutely be men keeping watch while the rest slept. Tortuga counted the time between each flare, calculating about three or four seconds of darkness. He signaled the Specialists to remain in their muddy shell holes. He rolled over the enemy trench, making sure to land on his feet. Tortuga kept his dark cloak close to him to try and hide any Atlesian symbols. His eyes quickly scanned for enemies. Nobody was nearby, at least not yet. He signaled the rest to enter the trench.
"We're going dark here," he explained, slinging his sniper rifle over his shoulder. "No guns. At night we can try and pass off as faunus."
While the rest of the Specialists didn't argue, Glaci looked upset at Tortuga as always. The sniper knew it was over the fact that the woman wasn't the leader of the mission and he was.
The group weaved through the connector trenches between the firing line and the communication lines. For the first time they were seeing the interior of the enemy positions. Compared to the Atlesian trenches, the faunus had more patchwork defenses, less hard concrete pillboxes, less machine gun nests, and less barbed wire. Their dugouts were either under the earth or a mixture of mud and wood huts that wouldn't survive artillery in the slightest.
Yet in so many ways they were the same. The same mud, snow and blood. The same half open tins of mushy food, the same huddled corners underneath tin plating to try and avoid rain, snow or gunfire.
Tortuga ignored it. He had to. Thinking about how similar you were led to sympathy. Sympathy led to hesitation. Hesitation created defeat. The moment a soldier becomes incapable of pulling the trigger was the moment they ceased to be effective.
Tortuga raised a hand. Someone was coming. Two fingers motioned the other specialists into the nearest corner they could find.
Another spotter flare went up, bathing the battlefield in light. Everyone's breath was hitched. Tortuga walked casually down the muddy trench. The faunus soldier had a lantern and a fuzzy mustache. "You scared me," the faunus said. "But I'm guessing you just got done with sniper work?" the faunus motioned to the rifle in Tortuga's hand.
"I was born with night vision. Lucky me" Tortuga chuckled. The faunus laughed lightly and pat Tortuga on the back before walking a few steps. Tortuga spun around, putting a knife into the faunus's throat and tightly keeping the man's mouth shut. The faunus struggled lightly before falling unconscious. Tortuga took the knife out and then tore out a bandage to cover the wound up.
"Does no good for us if they see a knife wound." The other soldiers said nothing but looked down at the gruesome sight. They had a job to do. Vine kept staring before Celadon pulled him along. The four of them kept moving. Daylight would be upon them soon and the plan demanded they be out of the enemy lines before then.
A light drizzle began pouring down. Tortuga pulled his hood up but the others simply bore the brunt of it. We have to get out of these trenches. There should be some vegetation to camp out in by daybreak Tortuga thought, planning for their way out. By the time they reached the third trench line there were more and more faunus they had to avoid. A task that was becoming harder to achieve with each passing moment.
"Zeki. Time till sunrise."
"Three hours."
Shit. Tortuga said nothing but in his mind there were spinning wheels. "Alright. Alright. Let's keep moving to the rear. At some point people will question why we're heading so far from the front. We'll have to ditch the trench. This far back there should be enough trees and hills to give us cover."
Vine raised a hand. "And what about entering the Thicket? From what you showed us, it's nothing but flat ground all the way to that defensive line."
Tortuga grit his teeth and considered options. They could try and enter from another trench, but that would take too long and risk exposure.
"We'll just have to solve that problem when we get there, specialist."
Glaci finally spoke up. "Hold on" she spat. "You're saying you don't have a plan to get us in?" Tortuga snapped around to silence the woman.
"I will deal with it when we get to it! The commander put me in charge here and you will obey the chain of command!"
"Says the private. I'm a Specialist remember? I outrank you." Glaci rose, Tortuga trying to keep her crouched down. A series of gunshots went out and crashed into Felgrau's aura and threw her into the dirt with a thundering force.
In the darkness of night, the faunus had found them. "Shit, going loud" Celadon said loudly, taking out her shotgun mechashift greatsword.
Feldgrau crawled to grab her rifle, wiped the mud from her face and opened up on the first man that was visible. The faunus dropped quickly.
"Vine, hold the rear. We're breaking out now! On my mark we're leaving the trench!" Tortuga shouted, firing his pistol into the darkness. The muzzle flash allowed brief instances of visibility. A bullet pierced through the cheek of a faunus who kept running before Tortuga put two more into the attackers chest.
"How the fuck did they find us?" Glaci shouted over the gunfire, no longer caring about keeping quiet. Celadon saw the shape of almond eyes, the eyes of a cat and put a round straight into the enemy's jaw. Blood and bone burst out the exit wound and sprayed the soldiers behind the corpse in a chunky mist. Most of what was inside the dead man's face fell out of the skull.
"Must have found the body. Looks like we underestimated them" Celadon theorized as she shifted her shotgun back into a greatsword and shoved it into a man's belly, shifting it back and then blowing out entrails onto the oncoming force.
A flare went up, lighting up their surroundings. "Oh shit" Vine voiced just before ducking several bullets. They whizzed overhead and pinged Tortuga's aura. "There's got to be fifty or more!" Zeki screamed over the shooting. The Specialist fired his weapon finally, dropping a few faunus.
Some of the faunus had aura and made things more difficult. "We can't fight them all. Galehorn, Zeki, hold here. Feldgrau with me!" Tortuga shouted. In the heat of the moment, Glaci obeyed. Survival instinct trumped personal grudges. Glaci nearly leapt out with her height. She reached a hand to Tortuga and pulled the sniper out.
Several faunus turned to shoot at the two who'd escaped only to be met with gunshots from Vine and Celadon. "Cover them! Vine you're first. Go!"
Tortuga opened up with his pistol stopping only to reload while Glaci sprayed her weapon freely. Vine crawled up and out of the trench and helped Celadon up. The two took several gunshots against their aura's.
Another flare went up.
"We have to run! Go and don't stop!"
They ran, under fire from chasing faunus. A bear faunus that towered over even Glaci roared with his weapon raised, only to fall onto his face with a bullet hole in the head.
"Off your feet Zeki! Let's go!" Tortuga shouted his pistol smoking hot from all the shooting. "With me!"
Vine and Tortuga lost sight of Glaci and Celadon. They ran until the early sunlight of morning appeared and they entered a thin row of trees and hills in the unmarred tundra. Their legs burned and adrenaline coursed through them.
When it was about midday they finally set up camp underneath a snowy set of pine trees and ferns alongside a series of low hills. The two men sat down to breathe for once, pulling out mess kits to try and get some nutrition in their bodies.
"We'll wait for sundown and continue moving to the target. We only have a few days left" Tortuga said after rolling out a sleeping mat. It was rough but passable. "Take some time to sleep. We'll switch watch every two hours."
Vine was still breathing heavily, his eyes wide open. "You still in there specialist?" Tortuga questioned, tapping Vine on the head. The specialist shook his head back to awareness.
"What about Glaci? And Celadon?"
"What about them?" the sniper responded plainly, laying down on his back and subtly implying for Vine to take first watch.
"Well, are we going to try and find them?" Vine said, unsure of their course of action. "They might be in trouble."
"If they're alive then they'll be doing the same thing. Completing the mission."
Vine recoiled at the thought of leaving a friend behind. "We should find them. We have enough time left to search and reach the Thicket in time and-"
"And what, specialist?" Tortuga snapped, his eyes closed and his arms wrapped around the back of his head. "The mission always comes first. I thought they told you that at the Academy? Well, I guess not. I'll tell you then. You can't get stuck feeling bad about everything that goes wrong. If we fail, thousands of men will die trying to destroy that gun. Two lives, even if they're your friends, don't compare. We have to complete the mission."
Tortuga then told Vine to keep watch while he slept. He didn't want to argue with some newbie about something that would be a total waste of time. A distraction in a time critical mission.
"How do you do it?" Vine asked softly. "How do you just…. Get over it? Let your emotions go and become the way you are?"
Tortuga sat up, looking at Vine. He hadn't really gotten a good look at the specialist before, but gods the man was young. James had said they were all fresh from Atlas, but Tortuga never truly understood what that meant till now.
"You've killed people right?"
Vine nodded.
"Then you shouldn't feel bad. You're already a murderer. We're in a war against faunus that want to just live. We're already criminals. What's one more? You just get used to it. Hell, you can even think you're doing them a service. The only way we're leaving this war is in a body bag. Once you accept that, you can accept letting go of anyone. Even your friends."
Vine paled. Tortuga spoke so clearly, so calmly. The man believed in everything that he'd said without any hesitation or doubt. It was a conviction that inspired awe and fear. Sort of like Commander Ironwood.
Yet the Commander was never this…. callous. Ironwood was calm, convicted, and steadfast but also kind, empathetic and deeply caring about the soldiers under him. That's what Vine had seen in the past year. Their entire mission was an attempt to save thousands from another massacre.
Even so, the Commander knows the risk. All four of us could die. Yet he proposed the mission to command anyways. Vine had overheard Clover speaking about it before. The burden of command.
Vine shuddered to think what he'd do in Ironwood's position. Someone so young being forced to send other youth to die, and to fight alongside them as their leader and brother in arms. Vine did not feel he could. He lacked the mettle for it.
"Alright," Vine said meekly, lowering his head under Tortuga's sharp gaze. The sniper eyed up the specialist once more before truly laying down and catching some sleep.
Vine was therefore left alone with his own thoughts while holding his rifle close. He didn't like the darkness Tortuga awoke inside of himself. Because the sniper was right. It really was that easy when you thought about it.
This war was not what he'd wanted as a huntsman, or as a specialist. He had no idea how to get out of it either.
Ironwood. He has to lead us out. With our souls intact. I have to put my faith and trust in him. An image of the young commander's face flashed through his mind. That smile during poker nights, or when Vine would take time to just talk with the man during a bombardment.
–
Eventually, Vine and Tortuga switched places. Each man got roughly four hours of sleep before sundown. At that time they destroyed any evidence of their presence and continued towards the Thicket. The operation was still continuing. Eventually they passed through the fern and pines, beyond the hills and into a field of thin snow and ice.
"Not good" Vine muttered, pulling his rifle up to bare. "They'll see us coming from a mile away." Tortuga could only grimace, unable to disagree.
"Well, we have to keep moving. Let's go" the man sighed, pulling up his own sniper rifle and began marching toward the Thicket. They marched all night and into the early morning. The sun rose slowly and started to shine. Their position was revealed.
To both men's surprise there was no gunfire. No shooting.
Nothing.
Tortuga thought that they'd be shelled or hit by mortars but absolutely nothing came their way. Was it a stroke of good luck?
It couldn't be. Clover was miles away.
"Stay on guard. Actually. Stay low. We should be getting close" Tortuga ordered and Vine obeyed. The Specialist had his rifle in a firing position after hitting the dirt. Tortuga took the time to move up across the snowy field and kneel.
He looked through his telescopic sights. There in the distance was the faintest visage of a fortified trench-line. "This deep in?" he mumbled to himself. Tortuga's brief scan showed one possible entrance. There was a blown out set of barbed wire that led to a massive pillbox. Probably an ammo dump this far back he theorized.
Lowering his rifle, he turned to Vine and waved the man forward. Zeki nodded, got up and rushed for Tortuga's position. "Well?" Vine asked expectantly.
"We have a way in. I think."
Tortuga winced at Vine's death stare. "Alright, I know," he emphasized. The sniper grumbled and looked back down his sights. "It won't be easy though. Probably a lot more faunus here than in other trenches. Guess their command values this line more than others…"
Tortuga shouldered his rifle and started moving again without a word eliciting a cry from Vine who had to pick up the pace without warning. The two tried to stay low the whole way.
Finally, from their distance they saw the primary objective. The massive artillery piece that had destroyed the Atlesian airship a year ago. It was surrounded by barbed wire, lesser artillery, pillboxes, machine gun nests, and an unseen ensemble of soldiers. In short, it was suicide trying to attack it if this was the defense several miles deep.
"There. We can slide in-" was all Tortuga could say before he stood absolutely still.
Why aren't there any defenders? They should be shooting at us by now. Tortuga had been betting on it. He was planning on using Vine as the bait while he slipped in to reach the objective.
But here they were, nearing midday, moments away from entering the enemy trench and there was nothing.
"What is it?" Vine asked, but Tortuga wasn't the one to respond.
A faunus soldier without a helmet crawled out of the trench, four others behind him. "Atlesians! Get the hell out of here, there's G-" he was cut short by the gut wrenching sound of bone being snapped and ligaments being torn apart. The dead faunus didn't even notice it before dying. An alpha beowolf had burst out of the damaged pillbox and torn the man apart.
The other four faunus ran out toward the Atlesians who were watching, horrified. A pair of Sabyr's crawled out from inside the trench as well. Several Creep's
At once, Vine took the lead and opened fire on the beowolf. He was the only huntsman in this new alliance between human and faunus, so he took the charge in fighting the Grimm. "Distract the Sabyr's and Creeps! I'll take down the big one!" the huntsman roared.
Vine stowed his rifle away and pulled out Thorn, his throwing star. Holding it close, Vine activated his semblance and shot himself to the right of the Beowolf, dodging the monster's heavy blow.
Shaking off the shock of Vine taking the lead, Tortuga looked to the faunus and decided he had no choice but to rely on them. The sniper opened fire on the smaller Grimm. The faunus soldiers joined in. Two of them had old rifles, bolt action, while the third had a stolen Atlesian semi automatic.
One of the creeps burst into a wisp of black smoke but the others kept rushing forward. They jumped onto a faunus and tore him to pieces. Tortuga swore and unloaded his pistol into the beasts, killing several. One Sabyr almost jumped on him but a faunus killed it before the beast could.
Tortuga nodded and turned to face the other Grimm, reloading his weapon as he did so. The smoking magazine hit the snow with a hiss.
Meanwhile, Vine was dodging and dancing around the alpha Beowolf. When he had openings, he'd shoot himself forward and slice at the legs of the Grimm, then extend himself away with aura. The beowolf was too large, too slow, to catch him. Vine made it look easy while the soldiers struggled against the ever growing amount of smaller Grimm.
Vine saw Tortuga struggling and lunged towards the sniper, bringing Thorn down on a Sabyr's skull, then turning around to stop a slash from the roaring Beowolf. "Tortuga! I said deal with the smaller ones!"
Growling, Tortuga responded. "I-" he paused to duck a paw slash. "- am working on it!" Tortuga spun around, kicked a Sabyr and shot three rounds into its stomach. The two surviving faunus were killing off the remaining Creeps.
Vine turned his attention to the large Grimm again, who'd just risen to its full height and prepared to bring down its bone crushing paws. Vine jumped straight into the beasts belly and activated his weapon, causing the sharp edges to start rapidly spinning and eating into the darkness. The beowolf screeched in pain as it was cut away and then burned away in death, leaving nothing behind.
Vine fell forward into the snow, losing his footing after the Grimm faded. He was helped up by one of the two faunus who were in awe. For once, the Atlesian's and faunus stood side by side.
"You saved us. Those Grimm nearly wiped us all out. Never thought I'd be thanking an Atlesian-" the faunus stopped speaking on account of his brains being blown out of his skull and onto both Vine and the tundra. Little gooey bits of brain rested on Vines' shoulder. The body was practically flung onto the ground by the force. There was absolutely nothing left inside the skull.
The other faunus turned to try and shoot back but a bullet hit him in the chest and he crumpled. Tortuga walked up to the whimpering faunus and finished him off with a round between the eyes.
"What the fuck was that for?" Vine screamed in horror. They'd just saved those two and they'd been utterly grateful to the pair. Tortuga reloaded his pistol and shrugged.
"They were the enemy. Or did you forget we're at war?" he responded with hardness.
"We could have taken them prisoner. We could have done anything other than shooting them with their guard down!"
Tortuga frowned, pursing his lips as he kept walking toward the Thicket. "What part of war did you not understand, Specialist Zeki? They could have died yesterday. They could have died tomorrow. They could have been hit with a piece of shrapnel in their sleep. We all die anyway. Get over it and complete the mission! We do not have the time or resources to take anyone prisoner. Do you even understand what that entails?" he shouted before jumping down into the ruined pillbox. We have to leave. Faunus response teams will probably come soon.
Vine wasn't having it this time, rushing into the Thicket and standing in front of Tortuga. The private narrowed his eyes and looked up at the specialist. "Step aside. We have a job to do."
"Not until we talk about this. I'm starting to think Glaci was right about you. That you're just a trigger happy psycho. Nobody can kill this many people and not feel bad?"
Tortuga's eyes widened and then shut close. He murmured his answer. "Who says I don't…. with a semblance like mine." Then with a sudden display of strength, he pushed past Vine forcefully.
"What?"
"Memorial. That's my semblance. I have a picture perfect memory. Every position, every piece of information, every face I've ever shot. Yes, I remember them all. Perfectly actually. Now, do not try and stop this mission again or I *will* get Ironwood to court martial you. Let's move."
Vine couldn't say anything. He couldn't do anything but follow.
The large cannon hovered in the distance, ever present and ever watching.
–
A/N: A very non-Ironwood focused chapter. We will get back to him, Clover and Watts eventually. This is a long arc. I hope you enjoy the dynamic between the well meaning but naive Vine and the long suffering Tortuga. Feldgrau and Celadon aren't dead. They will show up in the next chapter.
There will be a flashback with Ghira and Willow soon. More to come.
Please leave your reviews!
