– To Serve With Honor –
"SCATTER!"
The cry came from one of the police officers before Jaune could utter it, as he and a dozen SWAT officers stared up at a pair of White Fang gunmen that were taking aim with shoulder-launched missiles from a partly-destroyed second-floor balcony.
While the Valeans shot off in any direction that their feet could carry them - even into streams of gunfire - Jaune's shotgun snapped up, and half a dozen slugs punched through the air in rapid succession.
Five of them impacted the building in a shower of powdered masonry; the sixth slammed into the armored midriff of a missileer. While the slug had lost the kinetic energy needed to penetrate the target's ballistic vest, the force was still akin to a suckerpunch concentrated into an area the size of a fingertip; which was more than enough to make the fighter double over in pain at the very same instant that he pulled the trigger on his launcher.
The balcony disappearing in a ball of fire quickly became an afterthought as machine gun fire erupted from down the avenue, turning a stunned policeman and the sedan behind him into so much indistinguishable gore and scrap metal.
Others wisely scrambled for cover out of the street, only to be horrified and dismayed as their own concealment suffered the same fate as the first car under the withering enfilade of heavy machine gun fire.
As several streams of deadly accurate rifle fire were added to the mix, Jaune could only watch with growing dismay as several more officers were caught in the open and eviscerated; and under these conditions, it was almost forgivable that discipline amongst the survivors immediately began to crumble.
A fist-sized portion of the wall that constituted his cover disintegrated from a stray high-caliber round, and the Specialist growled in frustration. Almost forgivable, if it wasn't so damned irritating.
Glancing around his position, Jaune took note of a man in the alley across the street from his position, kneeling and holding his hands over his head and whimpering every time the sounds of gunfire peaked. He also noted the twin bars of silver on the man's lapels, and failed to restrain a groan of frustration.
'Damned spineless Valeans…' he couldn't help but grit internally, only to pause and chuckle bitterly at the irony of the thought.
Legio Patria Nostra - the Legion is Our Fatherland, the maxim of the Atlas Foreign Legion. Two and a half years, and he'd already discarded his birth nation and unconsciously accepted sole citizenship in one of the deadliest fighting forces in Remnant's history.
And now here he was, scoffing at the cowardice of his former countrymen, in the face of violence that they'd likely never even imagined, much less seen before.
'Well, I guess it's just up to me to show them how the Legion takes care of business.'
Jaune glanced down at his belt, noting the colors of the shells peeking out of the top of each magazine. He thumbed the release latch on his weapon, and adeptly swapped the half-full mag for a fresh one, slapping it home and then smacking the receiver with the heel of his palm to snap the bolt forward.
The machine guns that the White Fang had stationed up ahead were clearly older systems, as they still used cased munitions; judging from the report and rate of fire, Jaune might even go so far as to say that they were Mantlese general-purpose machine guns from the Great War.
While the autocannons and caseless weapons used by most modern military groups had higher muzzle velocities and rates of fire, and were more cost-effective, their projectiles had considerably less mass and stopping power; as such, it took more ammunition to eliminate a target, especially one with heavier armor or an Aura. The higher rate of fire was meant to compensate for this deficiency, but ultimately wasn't quite as efficient at the task as some older weapons with cased munitions, which had stopping power in spades, and could dish out damage to armor and Aura alike through the sheer momentum of each round.
So, even with his own combat armor and - admittedly unreliable - Aura, Jaune wasn't feeling particularly inclined to try and tank a round to see if, or how much, it hurt.
"Smoke out!" he called, yanking a cylindrical smoke grenade straight off of the pin on his armor and hooking it around the corner into the middle of the street ahead. A few other officers must've gotten the idea, because more grenades followed from various locations a few moments later - some smoke, along with a few tear gas grenades that began to spew translucent smoke which drifted towards the barricade.
Jaune ducked back out of sight to allow the smoke to propagate, and to psych himself up. Clenching his shotgun tightly to his chest plate, he closed his eyes and took several deep breaths while counting down from five; when his mental count ended, his eyes snapped open, and one hand went to his wrist to toggle his visor's thermal camera.
With the world now bathed in shades of red and blue, he spun on his heel and broke from the cover into the smoke, high-velocity rifle rounds hissing all around him, and much heavier bullets snapping past.
Eight humanoid red blooms waited behind the cars and debris at the barricade, some feeling secure enough in the obscurity of the smoke to stand fully upright and fire their weapons.
The others still in cover were the first to realize their comrades' mistake as tight clusters of buckshot burst from the smoke and took out three of their number in quick succession, either bursting their ballistic vests and making mincemeat of everything else, or catching them in the Aura with enough force to send them flying back.
Those Fang that turned back towards the source of the gunfire quickly wished they hadn't, as a crimson and grey behemoth materialized from the smoke on their right flank with a massive and deadly-looking shotgun leveled at them. The machine gunners were either unaware of the situation or unable to traverse their weapons towards the new threat as the sole survivor on that side of the barricade had his chest pulped by another shell.
Jaune hastily clamored across the hood of one of the cars and turned to face the four fighters on the other end of the barricade; the closest fighter jerked in surprise and spun towards him, spraying his rifle on fully automatic in a panic. Most of the shots went wild; but when a few caught Jaune's Aura and started to brush his chest plate, he loosed three rounds at the attacker, turning the Faunus's lower leg, forearm, and then his head into ground meat in rapid succession.
Two of the last three Fang paled and also started panic-spraying in his direction, earning a volley of buckshot apiece for their troubles; one was killed instantly, while the other was sent stumbling and then falling into the last fighter, who had panicked and dropped his weapon.
The pair fell over in a heap of tangle limbs; when they both looked up, the red and grey monster was towering over them, the barrel of its weapon centered between their heads as it kicked their weapons away. Both were quick to raise their empty hands and blubber out a panicked surrender.
Jaune sighed and glanced behind him, only to start when a body stirred and started to rise. He turned fully and thundered towards the recovering gunman, crossing the distance between them in a blink. A boot lashed out and sent the rifle flying from the Fang's weak grip; the Specialist firmly grasped the pistol grip and forestock of his shotgun, and then slammed the butt of the weapon into the startled fighter's face. Aura and mask alike shattered under the blow, and the Faunus slumped backwards bonelessly and didn't move again.
After once again surveying the area with bated breath, and finding no further movement, Jaune heaved a deeper sigh and disengaged his thermal visor as the smoke began to clear. He turned his unfiltered attention towards the box truck, where the machine guns had fallen silent a few seconds ago.
'Either they've both run out of ammo at the same time, or they heard the commotion and aren't sure what to do now,' he mused as he crept towards the doors at the back of the truck, swapping his empty magazine for his partial of slugs.
The latch had apparently been relocated to the inside of the doors when the truck was modified; he banged the buttstock of his weapon on the middle of one of them deliberately, and then leveled the weapon and took a few steps back. "Come out of the vehicle unarmed with your hands above you head!" he boomed.
"Fuck you, you fucking human scum!" a muffled male voice called back at a strained pitch. "If we're going down, then we're taking as many of you bastards with us as we can! For the glory of the White Fang!"
Jaune shook his head and took aim at one of the hinges, but paused when the vehicle started to rock on its axles; he strained his hearing, and detected faint sounds of a struggle inside.
"Don't listen to this fucking lunatic!" another panicked voice called a moment later, "Like hell I'm gonna die for this shit! Fu- fuck off already, Max!"
"FUCK YOU, Morty, you fucking cowardly piece of shit!"
Jaune had heard enough. He fired at the upper hinge of one door, the brittle metal joint shattering from the slug, as did the lower hinge immediately after. He followed with shots at the upper and lower frame at the seam of the two doors, where he guessed that the latching bars entered the frame; and once the hinges on the other side were taken care of, the conjoined doors groaned and teetered precariously before falling outward and landing at his feet.
Inside, the two machine gunners had apparently been grappling for control of a rifle, but had stopped when the shots had started; and when the doors fell out and they were faced with a metal giant pointing a wicked-looking gun at them both, one took advantage of the other's surprise and gave him a swift punch in the mouth. The blow dropped him, and the victor of the brawl's hands shot into the air, in an oddly amusing amalgam of victory and surrender.
"Please don't kill me," Morty the Faunus - avian, from the hair-like coat of brown feathers adorning his head - whimpered softly.
"Kick the rifle away, drag your friend out of the truck, and then get on the ground," Jaune intoned sternly in reply. Morty glanced around in a panic, and upon spotting the discarded rifle beside his foot, kicked it out of the open doorway. Jaune approached and, keeping his weapon trained on the pair, slowly bent down and retrieved the weapon before backing away and allowing the gunner to toss his unconscious comrade out of the truck. Morty followed quickly, eyeing Jaune's mask in terror as he jumped down from the truck and all but collapsed onto his face, his hands coming to rest atop the back of his head.
"Smart man," Jaune noted aloud with a tone of measured indifference. "I'm looking at eight bodies here, not counting you two. Am I missing anyone?"
"N-n-no, I don't think so," Morty stuttered into the concrete, only to flinch when Jaune tugged back the bolt and then allowed it to snap forward audibly. "We've been stuck in the back of that fucking truck since we got here! There were six guys in the back with us, and the driver and the Sergeant up front! That's all I know, I swear!" he rattled off in a panic.
"You'd better start remembering the rest of your story, Morty," Jaune did his best to growl; the synthesizer handled the rest, and Morty whimpered. "I'm sure the VPD are going to have a nice long chat with you and your friends."
The Specialist turned to face the rest of the street, where the smoke had mostly cleared, and a few officers were poking their heads up. "Keep your heads on a swivel and get up here! With a purpose, people! MOVE!"
Officers started to slink from cover, a few SWAT men feeling confident enough to comply and jog to the barricade with their weapons ready.
The rest of the group soon followed, and within the next minute, the VPD contingent had occupied the barricade, and were policing up the dead and surviving Fang and their weapons.
- To Serve With Honor -
"Captain Hallern's reporting the successful capture of a barricade on Seventh, along with five White Fang captured alive of the ten manning the position," one of the two radio operators reported neutrally, though the man's satisfaction was given away by a small grin at the corner of his lips.
Winter suppressed a sigh of relief, turning back to the shatterproof window of the Command, Control and Communications (C3) Bullhead. The aircraft was half again the size of the standard Bullheads operated by Beacon for rapid personnel deployment, and contained a suite of sensors and displays manned by three extra crewmen, and seating besides for half a dozen passengers.
That capacity was currently only taken up by herself, Chief Reagan, and Commander Umber; Carmen, the Chief Inspector, seemed to have evaporated into thin air around the time that the police response had been mobilized. Reagan had waved it off, stating the the crimson-clad Inspector was simply "getting on top of the situation."
Speaking of the Chief of Police. "I've got to hand it to you, Winter; your man's really on his game down there," Reagan admitted somewhat bashfully. "Only fifty percent casualties and objective success against ten suspects with military-grade armament. You've certainly trained him well."
"In this case, I had nothing to do with it except unlocking his Aura," Winter replied dryly, turning to offer the Chief a gimlet eye. "Specialist Amsel spent the better part of two years in urban combat in one of Mantle's largest cities. Giving him a trump such as a personal force field only served to elevate an experienced Legionnaire from a skilled combatant into a veritable juggernaut."
"I guess introducing Aura to the equation after he's already learned to fight without it would probably open up a whole new skill set to a clever shocktrooper," Reagan acknowledged with a thoughtful nod. The older man then turned back to the radio operator. "How are we looking on our side of that fight?"
"Eight casualties; six heavily wounded, two KIA," the operator answered gravely. "The Fang apparently armored a box truck and stuck a pair of old heavy machine guns inside; they tore up several officers and a lot of property before the Specialist intervened."
"How long have they been sitting on that kind of hardware, do you think…?" Paul Umber trailed off with a disgruntled sigh as Reagan squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"And what're our boys up to now?" the Chief asked without opening his eyes.
"Captain Hallern is holding at the barricade to police the Fang and treat the wounded; but it sounds like the Specialist took most of SWAT and a few other skilled shooters and is pressing on to the ambush site."
"Hallern's not happy about that, is he?" Umber asked redundantly.
"The Captain's explicit orders were to hold and wait for additional SWAT and military support; but the Specialist argued for a swift and aggressive counterassault to prevent further casualties at the site, and then asked for volunteers," the radioman related diligently.
"Hallern is in the right of it," Umber declared immediately, "None of those guys are trained or equipped to handle a fight of this magnitude against well-armed militants."
"And you think that the White Fang are particularly well-trained militants?" Winter interjected, disbelief leaking into her tone. Umber and Reagan both turned fully in their seats to regard her - the former with distaste, and the latter with measured consideration.
"They may have brought better equipment to this engagement, and switched up their playbook in Vale," she continued unabashedly, "But from the information you've presented to me thus far, I can find no indication that these doctrinal changes were prepared in advance. They might have a new commander who knows this style of warfare; but whoever that is, they would have arrived very recently, and had little to no time to do more than provide basic instruction and demonstration for the tactics that they've put into practice here."
"That doesn't change the fact that my men have had no preparation or instruction in urban warfare," Commander Umber ground out impatiently. "That's what we have a military for."
"Vale has a defense force," Winter shot back, unable to stop the condescension that bled into the words. "They may be more heavily armed and equipped; but in this day and age, the VDF is trained and suited towards combating the Grimm above all else. Bringing them to bear against the White Fang in tight quarters would simply result in more collateral damage than we've already seen."
"Then what about Huntsmen, Specialist?" Paul shot back, his countenance coloring as he was unable to refute her argument and moved to another tack. "We had Glynda Goodwitch herself on site not ten minutes ago. What's stopping us from holding off for ten more to get her back here so that we can wrap this up cleanly?"
The cabin fell silent, and even the radio operators glanced over their shoulders to shoot incredulous glances at the Commander. Umber, for his part, grew increasingly less sure of himself as Winter silently regarded him with irate amusement.
Finally, Reagan sighed and reached over, cuffing Paul Umber across the back of his head with a spade-sized hand. Umber bit off a yelp of pain and confusion and twisted around to face the Chief, who simply gestured back to Winter.
When Paul finally looked back at the Specialist, she had her saber out and resting across her lap, running a gloved hand over the length of the blade as she continued staring back at the Commander with all due disdain.
Paul finally got the point; his weathered face turned crimson, and he tried to shrink into himself.
"Chief," one of the radio operators piped up, "We've got images from the first aerial reconnaissance pass. You're gonna want to see this." Reagan pushed himself out of his seat and shuffled across the cabin to stoop down behind the operator's chair, peering over the woman's shoulder at the display.
Something on it must've deeply unsettled him, because the normally unflappable man paled noticeably. "Holy shit…" he whispered audibly.
Winter stowed her weapon at her hip, and shuffled over to stand beside Reagan; the Chief sidestepped and allowed her to lean in and examine the image - in particular, the figure with a rather iconic color scheme that was standing in the middle of the street.
By the time she consciously registered her own body's movements, her Scroll was pressed to her ear, Jaune's number dialed and ringing.
The call connected after three rings. "I'm a block out from the ambush site; are you coming or not?" the younger Specialist's tone was focused and clipped.
"You need to withdraw with your group and find a staging area, now," Winter responded hurriedly.
"What? No, I can hear small arms fire from my location! We need to get there before the rest of the survivors are wiped out and the Fang get away-!"
"Jack, listen to me," she interjected, a bit of panic bleeding through, "You shouldn't try to take that location alone. The Valean White Fang have a new commander, and it's-"
- To Serve With Honor -
He surveyed the remnants of his opposition impassively, pacing up and down the line of face-down and kneeling Vale police officers with his palm resting comfortably on the pommel of the sheathed blade at his hip.
These humans had spirit, he admitted candidly to himself. Those lying flat were the ones that were too injured to resist; the rest of them, even those decorated with various gunshot and blade wounds, met his gaze evenly as he stared down at them through his mask, his mouth set in a grim line.
Then again, he didn't expect the humans in Vale to have the same awareness of his reputation as those in Atlas and Mantle; so perhaps their bravado stemmed from simple ignorance.
That was fine; a man with a bit of steel in his spine died just the same as one without.
An unarmed scout - one of the men that had been recommended specifically by the Lieutenant, he recalled distantly - came to a halt at the far end of the line, bent over and out of breath. He waited for the scout to collect himself.
"Commander Taurus," the young Faunus finally huffed, "Our barricade to the east has been overtaken, and a force of VPD officers is approaching our location on foot."
"I didn't expect them to organize such an able response so quickly," Adam mused, still eyeing the captured policemen. "Or is it that our men at the barricade weren't up to the task?"
"They put up a strong defense and killed a lot of cops," the scout righted himself and snapped, only to shrink back when Adam shot him a sideways glance. "I-it wasn't our men, sir," he amended quietly, "The VPD, they had something leading the attack. Some kind of soldier, a giant in grey and red armor; it tore into the blockade, shrugged off their bullets and killed everyone that didn't have Aura. It's now leading the group that's approaching."
Adam's held fell back, and he stared absently at the rooftops as he processed the information. His fingers drifted down on Wilt and curled around the leather-wrapped hilt; he perceived a sharp flinch from the scout at the action.
'It's not unreasonable for a Huntsman to have arrived on the scene after that standoff,' he mused, his fingertips drumming against the hilt. 'But grey and red armor… Surely they wouldn't have brought one of those monsters here? Did they find out that I was coming from those Specialists? But if so, why is there only one of them, instead of a whole squad or one of the Specialists themselves?'
"It just doesn't add up…" Adam muttered with a small grimace. He turned to face the scout, who remained standing nervously at what he probably thought was outside of the range of his blade. "Evacuate the men that we've rescued first," he ordered, "We'll have achieved our objective here if the humans fail to recover their original prisoners. Get them out using Route Charlie; the rest of our forces will leave using Route Delta shortly after."
"Y-yes sir," the scout stammered and scurried away. Adam stepped away from the prisoners, and swept his eyes across the line to meet each of their gazes in turn.
"For civilian "officers of the peace," all of you put forth an admirable resistance in the face of overwhelming opposition," he intoned, pacing at a slower, more deliberate cadence. "For that, you have all earned my respect."
One of the kneeling officers coughed violently, and spat a glob of blood and phlegm at Adam's feet as he passed. "Is the respect of a terrorist and a murderer supposed to mean something to us?" the fit, grey-haired man grunted, tilting his head to meet Adam's gaze evenly.
Wilt and Blush clicked.
The air fell still, and those present looked to Adam with wide eyes.
An instant later, Adam withdrew his sword from the officer's chest, allowing the man a final gasp before he collapsed forward to the pavement.
Some of the man's colleagues cried out in dismay and rage. Others fell into a resigned silence, and one began to weep hopelessly, bent over with the crown of his head resting on the street.
"It means that I take no pleasure in carrying out this necessary evil of our mission," Adam replied to the air. He flicked his wrist, and splatters of blood detached from the crimson blade to paint the street.
"As a matter of fact, I feel compelled to thank you for your sacrifice, officers," he continued coolly, taking a single step forward to stand before the next man in line. "Your deaths today will serve as a message, and a catalyst; you will be remembered as heroes by your people, as well as ours. As the first casualties of this war, your blood and bodies will become a part of the foundation for the new world that will be born from the fires and ashes of our Revolution."
The man in front of him stared up at Adam's mask defiantly, but the terror still showed on his face. This was a wise man.
The muscles in his arm tensed, and the air stilled.
The report of a heavy firearm ripped through the stillness, alongside a heavy slug that snapped past the side of Adam's face.
As the report faded, there was silence, but no further shots. He heard his men raise their weapons after a moment of hesitation - but he raised his hand into the air, telling them to wait.
"Adam Taurus."
'Ah. So it is one of them.'
The static beneath the synthesized baritone assaulted his eardrums, but he had long since grown insensate to the sound. The fighters around him couldn't say the same; many shuddered, either from the offensive noise, or the figure from which it originated.
Two meters tall, clad in a grey uniform and armor with crimson trim. Black boots, black gloves, and a smooth, gleaming gunmetal mask that betrayed nothing and glinted in the early morning light. No hint of human skin to be found; and a large-bore, magazine-fed weapon in its hands, leveled at him with a small curl of smoking wafting from the barrel.
"Put your weapons on the ground and step away from the officers," it continued, never wavering.
Morale was a tenuous thing. And as a dozen armed and armored SWAT officers fanned out behind the giant, he could feel it slipping from his men, like a tangible sensation - like grains of sand trickling from between the fingers of his closed fist.
Adam met it's masked gaze with his own, and took a small step to the side, away from the prisoner at his feet.
"You have me at something of a disadvantage, I must admit," he called out, twisting Wilt in his grip until the tip rested on the inner edge of Blush. "You appear to be familiar with me; unfortunately, I can't say the same about you." The blade slid into its sheath, connecting fully with a sharp snap.
"I'm sad to say that we're already well acquainted with one another, Mister Taurus," it boomed. "I am Specialist Jonathan Amsel, of the Atlas Military."
A weak, gravelly voice grated through his mind, accompanied by an image of a broken young man slumped over and tied to a chair in an unlit room.
"Jonathan… Amsel… Legionnaire Second Class. Serial number… Friedrich… Ludwig… Seven four, two niner seven… Eight, niner, six, six."
His lips curled into an easy smile.
"Jonathan Amsel," Adam repeated, "As I live and breathe. I must not have recognized you because you're much more verbose than in our previous encounters; though I suppose that the uniform doesn't help much, either."
"Put your weapons on the ground, Taurus," the Legionnaire repeated with a growl. "You're to be placed under arrest for murder and acts of terrorism against the Kingdom of Vale."
"I'm not going to do that, Specialist," Adam replied, his fingers wrapping loosely around the barrel of Blush. "As a matter of fact, I'll tell you what I'm going to do."
His Aura began flooding the chamber of Blush, causing the entire weapon to rattle. He moved his free hand deliberately across his stomach, and it came to rest on Wilt, ready to draw.
Even beneath all of the armor, he could see the Legionnaire tense up.
"I'm going to kill your officers," He growled through gritted teeth, concentrating on the power building around his blade, "And my men and I are going to leave to fight another day."
Wisps of crimson curled around the edges of his vision.
"TAKE COVER!" Amsel roared. But while the Valeans readily complied, diving every which way to seek solid cover; the armored giant instead thundered straight towards him, firing slug after slug.
Unlike the smattering of return fire from Adam's own troops, the Legionnaire's rounds were deadly accurate; but it was already far too late. The slugs bounced or deflected off of the brilliant red Aura that seemed to emanate from the swordsman's every pore.
"Now DIE!"
Wilt parted from Blush, and for a brief moment, the world before him was engulfed by a tidal wave of crimson petals, and an intangible blade of energy that cut through everything it touched.
And through it, Adam watched the Legionnaire take a knee in the face of impending doom, fold his arms over his bowed helmet, and disappear within a ball of brilliant white light.
- To Serve With Honor -
It felt like a ball of flame encompassing his entire being.
'I guess that's one benefit of having the actual experience of being on fire,' Jaune contemplated as his Aura flexed under the pressure of Taurus's attack. 'It sucked then, and it sucks just as much now.'
He cracked an eyelid, and the world outside was warm, claustrophobic, and pink.
A hysterical and not even remotely mature giggle filled his mind. Death was literal millimeters from his face, and yet here he was tittering at his own anatomical innuendos; because after a year in hell and another with Winter Schnee, Jaune Arc's mind was a fucked up place, and the fact that this shit was somehow funny was a good thing, in some twisted manner of speaking.
A minuscule crack formed in the hard light in front of his face, and all hilarity was instantaneously vaporized.
'No.'
The crack formed a single branch. Jaune forgot how to breathe.
'Not like this.'
Two more branches. His heart had stopped.
"Please," he prayed.
It went unanswered.
The brilliant white light of his Aura shattered - and for a brief moment, all he knew was red and hellfire.
And then an instant later, it was over. The last of the energy washed over him, followed shortly by a strong breeze that eventually made his filters cognizant of the smoke rising from his gauntlets.
Jaune finally drew a great breath of glorious living air, and allowed himself to run the gambit of thanking every deity that he could name.
The sound of rapid footfalls interrupted his praise, and he rolled backwards and narrowly avoided decapitation.
"I can't say that I've ever had a target weather one of my strikes before," his assailant called out conversationally - the voice grew closer towards the end, and Jaune instinctively charged forward and threw his shoulder out. A blade scraped against his shoulder pauldron, but did probably didn't do more than tear the fabric cover; regardless, he hastily broke off his blind charge.
He fell back a few steps and drew himself up, finally catching sight of Taurus standing before him with his blade sheathed and at the ready. It took much of his experience and conditioning to hold back from roaring and charging the terrorist.
He reverted to his old standby - levity. The lower portion of the face plate covering his mouth retracted into his visor, automatically disabling the audio synthesizer - it would do no good against a fighter like Adam.
"I've been told that I have an unhealthy propensity for running into explosions instead of away from them," he replied, rolling his shoulders and reaffirming his grip on his shotgun. "But enough about me - is this really sporting?" he asked, raising his firearm and pretending to examine it. "You're going to come at me with a sword when all I've got is a shotgun?"
"You're going to tell me with a straight face that you've never used that gun to beat a man's skull in?" Taurus shot back flatly.
Jaune grinned, "I never said that I haven't; and I feel like you're not going to let down your Aura to give me a better shot at doing just that."
The Faunus replied by closing the distance in a few long strides, and lashing out. Lacking the speed to dodge, Jaune attempted to parry with his weapon; Taurus's blade cleanly sheared through the metal of the furniture and the barrel, leaving him holding the receiver and most of the length of the barrel in either hand.
"You just cost the Atlesian taxpayers at least five hundred lien," he quipped, stepping forward and swinging the dismembered barrel at Taurus's midsection. The crimson blade stopped the blow, as well as the three follow-up strikes; and then it sheared more of the metal off, just above Jaune's wrist.
He grimaced and tossed the rest of the scrap aside, backpedaling and firing the rest of the bisected shotgun from the hip; the shell sprayed wide, and he saw Taurus wince as several pellets struck his arms and legs around the area that the terrorist was able to defend with his sword.
Unfortunately, the Faunus was easily able to shake off the shot; and a cursory glance revealed that the stress from firing the poorly-modified weapon had split what little was left of the barrel apart, rendering the entire mechanism useless. Jaune unclipped the receiver and threw it aside as well, drawing his sidearm from his hip. In the process, Adam made no move to approach him, apparently content to stand at rest with a hand on his sheathed blade.
Jaune's eyes narrowed, and he finally took stock of the situation. He and Taurus had moved up the street in the direction of the outer cordon, allowing the Valean SWAT to circumvent them and press on towards the captured police officers; however, that fight was clearly winding down, as over half of the original contingent of White Fang fighters was nowhere in sight. Even as he watched, another handful of the terrorists broke off from the firefight and disappeared down the avenue and into alleyways.
'A holding action.' Adam's troops had already recovered their imprisoned comrades, and were now focusing on minimizing their own casualties during their withdrawal by using the cops as a shield and a distraction.
The Legionnaire turned back to Taurus; the swordsman's smirk was all the confirmation that he needed.
"So you want to fight the long war, then," Jaune stated.
"Vale is neither Atlas nor Mantle," Adam replied, his expression settling into impassivity, "The humans here are not prepared. I have no desire to drag even more of my brothers and sisters into a new century of senseless blood and death; our war here will begin and end in a matter of months."
"And fresh from the victory, you'll use your new resources, manpower, and political capital to see Atlas isolated and destroyed."
Adam nodded, and his hand fell away from his blade as he took a single step forward. "Think about it, Jack-"
Jaune started at the name and the conversational tone.
"-The war that's made worse monsters than Grimm out of men, finally brought to an end along with the entire institution that saw it began and carried on for so long. No more families ripped apart; no more orphans forced to take up arms out of necessity born of senseless violence."
Jaune shook his head, but did not raise the pistol in his hand. "Your plan hinges on leveraging the entire Kingdom of Vale; these aren't people who would admit defeat without first being dealt a deathblow. You would see thousands of innocent people killed to end another Kingdom's war halfway across Remnant; that's not a price that I'm willing to see paid."
"Then what will it take?!" Adam snarled, "You would see tens of thousands more of us killed in our lifetime, simply because you can't accept the one-time cost to see it end?!"
"Just who is this we that you keep referring to?!" Jaune snapped back, throwing his arms out and gesturing with his free hand between them. "Your people, or mine? Or are you implying that you and I are somehow the same?!"
Adam barked an incredulous laugh. "You still won't admit it, after all of this time?" The Faunus threw his arms up and continued to laugh harshly. "You think that people like you and I can do all that we've done, kill all that we've killed, without becoming monsters?!"
"I'm not a monster," Jaune growled back, his knuckles turning white beneath his gloves as his fingers started to deform the reinforced grip of his sidearm. "I have no grand ambition. I don't go out every day intending to kill everything and everyone that stands in my way. Everything that I've ever done, to this day, has been for my men - my brothers."
"Then you're nothing but an ignorant, short-sighted, cowardly hypocrite," Adam spat venomously. "You are a monster. I am a monster. Your 'brothers' are all monsters just like you and I. Our superiors and predecessors are monsters, and if we don't see this to an end in our lifetime, future generations will continue to grow up to be monsters until either the Grimm have killed us all, or we've all killed each other!"
Jaune had heard enough. His face plate snapped back into place, and his pistol snapped up level with Taurus's mask. "Don't try and pretend that you give a damn about saving humanity!" he shouted. "You would see all of humanity subjugated by force, and centuries of injustices repaid with humans as slaves to the Faunus!
"Every war that's ever been fought has been to 'end all wars,' and yet here we are today!" Jaune carried on, his trigger finger twitching violently against the small, curved piece of metal beneath it. "Your war isn't going to stop anything! This cycle of hate will carry on, and in the end, people will continue to die for it!"
"And you would propose that we keep fighting our same old wars, committing murder as a part of our daily routine until the end of our days!" Adam's expression twisted fully into a snarl of disgust. "I will lead my people in our final Revolution! I will tear down the veil of peace and prosperity that these corrupt institutions have draped over the eyes of the masses, and then I will lead an uprising that will rip out the very foundations of those structures that have allowed themselves to become rotten to the very core!"
Jaune roared, and his feet moved. The pistol in his hand barked again and again as he closed the distance to the Faunus in a blink; but flashes of crimson swept the bullets aside until his gun clicked uselessly, and he was within arm's reach of his opponent.
He flipped the pistol around in his grip and lashed out at Taurus's head with a wide hook, intent on implanting the butt of the weapon into his skull; but his wrist was stopped dead against a hand that clutched a shotgun-sheathe, and his left-handed chambered punch opened at the last second to catch the hilt of the blade that flew towards his neck.
And so Jaune found himself faceplate-to-mask with the enraged terrorist, the two struggling for control of their respective weapons, but finding themselves to have parity in raw strength. Between their faces, the deadly crimson blade quivered under the restrained power of their impasse.
"I WON'T LET YOU DRAG ANYMORE INNOCENT PEOPLE INTO THIS WAR!" Jaune roared, his hidden face twisted into a mirror of the sheer rage before him.
"THESE PEOPLE WILL BRING AN END TO THIS WAR!" Adam spat back, "WHY CAN'T YOU SEE THAT?! WHY DO YOU INSIST ON FIGHTING ME WITHOUT PURPOSE?! WHY DO YOU THROW YOUR LIFE AWAY FOR THE SAME PEOPLE THAT WOULD DISCARD ALL OF OUR LIVES WITHOUT A SECOND THOUGHT FOR THEIR OWN GAIN?!"
Jaune's rage at Adam faltered; and then his rage at himself flared with a vengeance.
"BECAUSE IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT I KNOW HOW TO DO TO PROTECT MY BROTHERS!"
He let off the pressure on his pistol and caused Adam to falter; Jaune reared back, and the butt of the gun crashed into the side of the terrorist's head - or rather, it crashed against the crackling red shell of his Aura.
The maneuver set Adam off-kilter, but still forced Jaune to let up on his grip of Wilt; the blade sliced through the air towards his face, and his eyes squeezed shut in resignation.
There was a terrible screech of metal slicing into metal; but no pain.
A moment passed, and Jaune finally peeked through a crack in his eyelids. A black diagonal gash crossed his HUD and vision, but the blade hadn't completely penetrated his face plate. His attacker had retreated outside of melee range, and was panting lightly as the adrenaline dissipated.
"You… Are a pathetic creature," Adam bit out softly, sheathing his blade. Jaune finally registered that the gun battle beyond had ended; the rest of the White Fang were nowhere in sight and Vale's SWAT officers had formed a semi-circle some distance behind Adam, their guns aloft as they looked on tensely.
"Then why haven't you just killed me yet?" Jaune growled back, a gloved left hand running absently across the deep gash on his mask. "Three times, now. Three times that you've failed to put me out of my misery."
"Because right now, your death would be both a mercy, and a waste."
Jaune's hand fell limply from his face, and set to reloading his weapon. Adam shook his head, his mouth set in a thin line.
"You fight without purpose." Taurus appeared to consider the statement, his head inclining slightly, before he amended, "No. You fight to die. You lack a greater ambition, and your grief over the deaths of your men drives you to seek a similar end - a glorious death 'in the line of duty.'"
Jaune remained silent. He flicked the release, and the pistol's slide snapped forward, chambering a round from the fresh magazine.
"I will not be the one to end you - not now," Adam concluded, allowing his blade to hang freely at his hip. The swordsman turned slowly to face the officers behind him, fixing his gaze intently on the rifleman in the center.
"You have two choices, Specialist," he carried on while staring down the cop, who began to sweat lightly. "You can do yourself a favor, and find your ambition - find a reason to continue on your path of resistance. Give me a reason to seek your death.
"Or, you can do me a favor, and get out of my way. Whether you do so by leaving, or by ending your own life, is a choice that I leave to you out of respect."
Jaune's pistol rose once again, and he fired. The SWAT officers followed suit.
Taurus's form disappeared in a blur of color and motion, hundreds of bullets crashing against the blade in his hand as the crimson glow surrounding him grew brighter; until he stopped, his silhouette aflame. "TAKE COVER!" Jaune called to the Valeans; some on the outer fringes were able to comply, but it was too late for the rest.
In a flash of light and a spray of blood, half a dozen of Vale's finest were bisected or dismembered. Their dying cries rose into the morning air, followed by more gunfire. But within moments, Adam Taurus was gone.
Jaune did not pursue him, choosing instead to distract himself with vainly struggling to save the men that he had failed.
Just as he always did.
End Chapter 5
Author's Note: Adam Taurus slashes his way into Death Battle.
This chapter marks the conclusion of the mini-arc that I aimed to use to introduce the primary cast of characters on a personal level, and in particular to exhibit how the changes to Jaune's backstory in this AU have affected his character up to this point; as well as to hint at how his current circumstances will influence his story going forward.
In case it hasn't been made clear up to this point, I will make a blanket statement now: This is an AU in which I have written or rewritten history within the setting to affect the early lives of several members of the RWBY cast. As this particular story is concerned, the changes that will be explored have predominately affected Jaune.
"Legionnaire Jaune," as I have taken to referring to him in my meta-notes, is my depiction of what I believe Jaune as we know him would become as a result of the circumstances outlined in the Prologue; as well as the events which have been described and alluded to, and events which will be referenced or described later.
But, as I've also said, other characters have been affected by the same or other alterations which are part and parcel to this AU. For this story, the other characters concerned are Adam Taurus and the Schnee family; while another story (which I currently have plans to publish later) will explore changes affecting the members of the Rose-Xiao Long family, Hei Xiong and the Malachites, and my personal favorite Clockwork Orange and his colorful accomplice, Roman Torchwick and Neopolitan. And while the latter list won't be explored in-depth until their own work, several of the characters may come into play in the course of events in To Serve With Honor.
I have grand ambitions and high hopes for this story, as well as for the entire world that I'm working to craft and depict, and I'd be delighted if you all would like to bear with me and come along for the ride.
Thanks for tuning in, and I hope to see you in the next one.
-Knightmare Frame Razgriz