Grimm's Bane
Sienna Khan found most of the White Fang gathered in clumps on high ground, or were standing on roofs, watching the firefight. She couldn't blame them, the noise alone would make even the most fearful watch. Driving to the main building Sienna wasted no time getting in and activating the intercom.
"Attention. White Fang members. What you have seen so far is but a prelude to what is to come. It has been recommended by the commander of Grims Bane that all members of the White Fang seek hardened shelter or evacuate south. You have ten minutes." She hung up the intercom with a thump that echoed across the camp. She moved towards the exit intent to return, finding Adam Taurus with his subordinates. It took less then a second to see something was on his mind. She half guessed what it was, for it was on her mind as well.
"You have an opinion?" Sienna asked, her tone made it clear she was hearing him out of respect only. Adam bowed slightly a fist over his chest. "High Leader. Why are you not commanding us to take their weapons?" Adam started to fidget his emotions rising. "We out number them three to one, they are occupied, we can take them by surprise." He stopped waiting for her orders.
"Are you asking me to break an agreement? With a fellow faunas? Just because he has humans in his little army?" She folded her arms over her chest and leaned back watching him intently. "I know. We fight, every day for fairness with the humans. More times then not we have to burn them out, just to get them to listen. We have to steal to obstruct the uncaring governments and greedy corporations who make financial slaves of us, keeping us poor and uneducated."
Sienna Khan walked closer to Adam her tone low in anger. "This young Isaac Cane has been making positive strides in equality with humans." She pointed in the direction of Grims Bane. "These humans have helped him, donating millions to take down a system that was going to forsake him and you want me to order their deaths?"
"With these weapons we could take all of Vale to Ménage. The humans would have to bow to Us." Adams words and passion were contagious. It was clear he considered the cost in lives worth it. The two with him obviously believed completely his words.
"Do you really believe we can defeat over two hundred licensed hunters with military grade weapons, with just over six hundred White Fang?" Sienna countered.
"I never took you for getting soft. High Leader." Adam softly told her, he seemed more surprised then angry, or even insulting.
Sienna turned away taking a step and a breath before turning back. "All right, say we do this. That were successful. Do any here know how to run one of those, tanks? There are two more of those grim pods coming for Grims Bane, some twelve leviathans in those pod's." She did not wait but pounded into them the flaws in there thinking. "Perhaps we can torture one of the survivors, maybe a faunas?" Khan could feel her frustrated anger rising but continued. "Don't think for a minute that being faunas makes them collaborator's. Everyone there is loyal to Isaac and his dream, faunas would be fighting faunas, and I will not allow that!" Sienna stepped back mentally pounding down her anger. Then kept going in detail.
"Do you know how to make the rounds they use? There not dust, it's some kind of powdered chemical of Isaacs own design, like the tanks, or that aircraft, and the list goes on." She walked into Adams face. "I never took you to be impulsive and short sighted, or it seems desperate. I never imaged you unable to even think such things trough. Was I premature in giving you control of the White Fang in Vale?" Khan saw him take a step back, his mind spinning for an answer. So she pressed on.
"You can't take their command and control center without destroying it. That armor is vault door thick. That trailer is the brains of Grims Bane, which I am happy to say has faunas inside who have earned rightfully their place. Then there is that gunship, an armored gunship with cannons on it almost as potent as those three howitzers." She stood back and sighed restraining her aggravation. "I personally watch it destroy a large flock of fully grown Nevermore's at a distance that made it look like a dot in the sky. That firepower alone could decimate our camp destroying our merger air fleet. I say that because you and I know our airships could never stand up to a hundred nevermore's, where Grims Bane destroyed almost a thousand."
In the silence that fallowed a jet could be heard winding up. Sienna Sighed explaining in a rather tired way knowing she had to sway them or this would become a festering problem.
"To this young faunas. We, I gave the word of the White Fang, we paid well for there services. When they clear these grim we can safely expand, provide faunas protection and shelter, a place to live unafraid, and create the resources to build a city that will make Menagerie look like a bunch of primitives. This place will become the stepping stone off that retched island, the foothold into the human world. One we will never surrender."
She looked at her scroll. "It's almost time for the second wave of grim to arrive. These will be the larger grim, behemoths up to titan with five leviathans." She paused to let that information sink in. "Grims Bane will be using heaver firepower, something we have yet to see." She saw Adams pressed lips his frown if you will.
Sienna asked him sincerely. "Think. We are two miles, to the side from that army, the grim over seven. They are going to be using a weapon that may damage our buildings from over five to ten miles away. At least that's what the kit hinted at. So, search the camp. Send any one you find into the shelters and wait for the all clear." Khan held up her scroll before turning and leaving.
Annoyed Sienna Khan drove almost recklessly coming to a stop at the rear of the camp by the medical tent. Someone called out not much time left. Nodding Sienna sprinted to the tower, finding it laying on its side almost completely packed onto a truck. The tanks were far away, near the end of the cleared land.
Turning to the armored trailer Sienna approached, the door opening as she neared. "Glad you could make it." The human said and offered her a hand up the steps. Sienna looked at the offered arm for a full two seconds before taking it.
Inside the chatter from a dozen voices mixed in her ears. "Times up people." Isaac told them. "Bombardment." The muffled explosions from the howitzers were the only sound, everything else was muted to nothing. The screens showed who was firing. The soft chatter picked up as C&C picked out and directed who was firing at who. "Incoming Breath Weapon! Button up now!" Khan half smiled. It was a faunas commanding them. Tanks in random order blinked to the color yellow, the forward howitzer erected a hard light barrier, angled to shoot over it. Someone using a telekinetic semblance was loading huge shells with white bags into the gun, she timed the rounds to be once every fifteen seconds.
A leviathan breathed, flatting what was left of the burning forest, almost all of the tanks vanished in that energy. It reached them moments later, only a few of their cameras went dark, and only for mere seconds, this told the tail of the inferno just outside the door. Then that leviathan died from a hit by a Howitzer.
Everyone started cheering. "Focus!" Barked Isaac. "Golden BB shot, true. But. This is far from over." They mutely returned to work. Some of the lighter tanks were damaged, control telling them to fall back, or get behind one of the larger tanks.
They spread out making it harder for the grim to hit them all. Sienna noted they now formed oblique patterns. She understood getting hit head on was more damaging then getting hit at an angle. Two long missiles blinked green on a side monitor. Sienna frowned seeing the woman at that screen looked tense. One controller held that position. "Puff is online." She said. Isaac picked up an electronic pen drawing a circle off center of pod two saying. "You have the ball." Sienna watched the woman gulp, run a checklist turned a key then pressed down on it. A monitor which had been showing a scene of the sky suddenly started moving coming down low to the earth. "Puff is in the air, twelve seconds." She announced. "Impact north by east of pod two. Ten seconds." She flipped a covered button and held a thumb over it. All the tanks changed to a blue color their guns facing away from the grim, people were jumping into holes and pulling the lid over themselves. That forward howitzer had a dome of hard light around it and the truck delivering ammo. Sienna Khan swallowed with a dry throat. Wondering what was coming.
"Danger close." Someone said with the calmest voice she had ever heard. The fast moving scene weaved past some large grim who were turning towards it. The young woman pushed the button hard calmly saying. "Flash fire. Flash fire." That screen turned into static. What happened next was forever ingrained in Sienna Khans mind. A large screen showed a bright flash, a ball of light that stayed for two full seconds before expanding in a dome of fire, then rising up in a massive fireball that was pushing away any clouds near it. "Shock wave, three, two. One." The same young woman declared. The tanks vanished in dust and fire. The wave of dirt and wreckage reached out slamming into them rocking Command and Control. Monitors went static for a few moments then cleared.
A mushroom shaped ball of fire rose into the sky, a ring of spinning fire formed around it, its speed and size sucking in dirt and grim, the circle of devastation was to her enormous. Compressed air was still rolling out as far as the cameras could see. Easily a mile around the center was utterly destroyed. Impossibly those tanks were moving forward, firing as they went. She felt the tremors from the huge guns firing. There were three large grim still in that devastation staggered but standing. Sienna's eyes went round as they fell one by one, another breath weapon reached out hitting two of the heavy tanks, who kept driving through it. Then it was done. The fireball was still rising into the sky a falling trail of dust and dirt connecting it to the ground, at least two miles up and rising, dust was everywhere and large sections of the forest were simply gone, swiped away by an angry hand. The din as these young adults cheered was infectious. She found herself smiling. Watching Isaac patting or giving a high five and nodding his approval for a job well done.
Two light tanks retreated heavily damaged. One heavy fell back going hull down by one of their manufactured hills, its gun in the yellow along with the front and left side tracks. "Well that's about ten million to fix." Isaac muttered darkly. Then he seemed to shake himself before speaking into a mike. "Thumper can you get a laser lock on some of those grim on pod three?" He smiled. "Yes, once you're in the air." He clicked a switch box on his hip and started talking. "Over watch? Can you get all the drones in the air? We need precision on laser locks."
The third pod was slow. The massive grim within lumbering to them. Five of the largest fell before they were within five miles. Behemoths and giants were cleared out just from misses aimed at the leviathans. Another twin rocket bombardment hit the pod dead center.
The pod started to loose cohesion under the constant bombardment, and shelling, the smaller and the faster ones started to spearhead. Control ordered the tanks to back up and keep firing. Soon pod three looked more like a line of grim coming at them.
"We have a seismic contact." A controller at the front end of the trailer announced. Sienna watched another controller ordering the entrenched units to evacuate, the two damaged tanks to get into a fallback position and show their good side. The medical units were ordered to bug out. As the bedlam of commands died down Sienna could feel it, a slight shaking. "I hate burrowers." Someone muttered. "Anyone got a fix on where there coming up?" Isaac asked the room. No one answered. After what seemed like a minute a soft voice seemed to fill the quiet room. "It's not burrowers, it's the hill." She pointed at her screen.
Sienna watched Isaac frown at the screen before barking orders. "All steel retreat, Lights turn and run, heaves keep firing but back up as fast as you can, everyone else dig in. That hill is an elder leviathan, a Kaiju, it's waking up." Then he stuffed a cigar into his mouth, which was batted away. "No! Bad kitty." A human said. Sienna was winding up when a female faunas caught the cigar and crushed it in Isaacs face. "You know the rules kitty, no smoking in control." She started smiling at his shocked face before flicking the remains at him and turning back to her counsel.
"This is a hermetically sealed environment. We have about three days of air before the scrubbers deplete, smoking burns them up a whole lot faster." A voice explained in her ear. Turning Sienna found it was the one who offered her a helping hand. A part of her knew if she had attacked that human he would have tried to stop her.
Control rocked a bit as the earth moved drawing them back to the screens. Avalanches were rolling off the hill as something in it pushed slowly up. She felt herself gasping at the immense size of it. "Thumper, Drone control, find me a head, fast as you can, get any sensor we got on that thing and record at hyper tracking. Everyone else take those grim down! Reserve nothing." Control became a bedlam of voices. Thumper even dove low distracting the Leviathans for the tanks and Howitzers, making it's self the target so they could get a good side shot on them. The pod of grim was shrinking quickly as the hill grew and moved. "Puff, relocate one mile, come at them from the east, drive as fast as you can, we get only one shot at this."
As it rose up, a rumbling dust storm flowed off it. An avalanche of trees and debris of epic size thundered down its hide as it sloughed off uncountable tons of earth. Isaacs voice cut past the chatter and rumbling. "I need every heavy in front of our support units, when it breathes it's going to be like the sun descended, I need you all to park em track to track and go NBC until told to do otherwise, get everything else behind a hill or top hulled down, let control tell you where to shoot. Forward Howitzer dome yourself with no less then two hard light barriers, Supply, get em what they need. We have less then three, maybe five minutes. Move." He quietly said.
Tanks rolled up parking at an angle their cannons firing into the remaining grim. Close ups of the elder grim brought forth a primal fear, seeing it push up on skyscraper tall and city block wide limbs. Then it's head came up out of the ground scattering even more earth. Sienna was seeing that grim in every shade of the rainbow, UV Thermal everything they had, lasers kept distance and range the numbers flickering hundreds of feet as it sluggishly moved. "Any soft spots?" Isaac asked leaning over one of the faunas. She shook her head. "Ok your our numbers expert, calculate our weapons speed vs distance and program it into every weapon you can, when we fire on that thing We need pin point accuracy, it all has to land at or near the same time. With puff just behind." She didn't ask any questions she went to work, taking over two screens a mass of data flowing across the board as she typed feverishly. Imputing tank and location, estimating distance and speed of round.
Isaac gave her space stepping back then reached for his smokes, thought better of it and started fidgeting like a nine year old. The elder grim began to turn. "Here it comes." Someone whispered. Quiet descended on the room only some quick typing could be heard. The tanks, colored blue had turned their cannons away from the grim, everyone who was in the infantry was gone. Two domes were around the forward howitzer. "Got it." A female voce said.
Then the elder grim breathed. "Grab onto something!" Someone yelled. The wave of energy and fire that flowed out of that mammoth mouth was consuming everything it touched even the remaining grim. The viscosity was more like a pyroclastic flow then energy. C&C shifted with the impact. The command center screens went dark as the trailer rocked and slid. Some screens still worked, the one's looking behind the trailer. What Sienna saw was a wall of fire like a blowtorch, it started getting hotter as the breath ended.
Isaacs voice cut the quiet. "Get scanners online." The red cat looked at him, he seemed cold, disconnected even his voice was measured and exact. Control moved, opening an overhead hatch pulling a lever. Something exploded above them and someone stuffed an electronic device the shape of a coffee can into the hole, closing the hatch. The monitors quickly came back online.
Two light tanks were red on it's own screen. Sienna heard someone say. "No survivors. Two heaves were mostly red but could still fire. The howitzer crew had wounded but the gun fictional. There own trailer had large yellow markings on it. "Another breath and it's over." Someone cursed. Isaac sighed then headed for the door. "Isaac, just where are you going? Your needed here." Sienna didn't know who the caller was, she watched him stop as the thick door opened. Behind the boy Sienna could see heat distorting the air in shimmering waves. "What's the number one rule of Grims Bane?" Isaac asked.
In the seconds of silence they all said in one voice. "The person is not important, the mission is." Isaac nodded somberly and walked down the steps. "That thing is like a dog, I'm going to lift its head. You have the ball." Then the door closed. All eyes turned back to the screens. Someone was tracking Isaacs movements as he crawled onto one of those large tanks. "He looks so small." Sienna said. "How?" She asked the room.
"Kit's got a crazy powerful semblance. One of the things that caused trouble in school. He kept telling the instructors there is no upper limit to aura or ones semblance, that these limits were all in our heads. That little cat can move over three hundred thousand tons of water, bet me, that grim has water in it. He's going to lift its head to give us a throat shot." Sienna turned from the speaker and watched Isaac. All turrets were turning to the elder grim. "This is end game." Someone said.
Isaacs voice crackled over the speakers, distorted and quiet. "Puff? You still alive?" Moments passed before a static voice replied. "Still here, a little cooked. Ready at this end." "Stand by." Someone called up Isaacs aura and health chart moving it to a long list. "Ten dead over twenty wounded. Hope this works." A human whispered in the quiet room. "Tracking, got a good lock. Now." The new commander of Grims Bane said. Isaac looked like he wrapped an arm around something and with the other hand was prying something up. The elder grim had six legs, walking like an oversized crocodile complete with a tail still coming out of the ground. It was turning to fully face them. Its head started to lift.
"Slug throwers hope your packing sabot and thermal. Fire! Time on target." The command center rocked with the sear volume of weapons firing around them Sienna watched Isaacs aura dropping quickly "Fire!" She yelled slapping a switch. Someone zoomed in on that elder grim. Chunks of stone and flesh pealed off from, compared to its size, in popcorn like flashes as they shot it. The missile came into view moments later its flight taking it just under the chin. A small streak showed up for just a moment leaving a cloud behind it, then again white filled the screen's. The last thing anyone saw was Isaac wrapping a silver blanket around himself and crouching behind the tanks turret. The fireball bloomed in a red dome, this time the blast was partly blocked as something large was raised off its feet. "Keep firing.!" It seemed to Sienna a futile gesture, accuracy in a wind that strong was a daydream.
The fireball streaked upwards as the elder grim was raised up by two legs, it seemed to slowly fall, an illusion made by the size of it, simply immense. The ground rumbled when it hit, a wave of earth coming at them like ripples of water heading for shore. C&C rocked almost falling onto its side anyone not buckled into their seat was tossed about the room. Someone was yelling over the noise of moving earth, asking if it was dead.
Another voice cut the room as the earthquake relented. "HT3 do not move your turret. Isaac is laying there you will pinch him if you move, someone get out there." One from the howitzer crew came running over, sliding him off the tank pitching the kid on his back. "Burned, but still alive. Going to drop him off at medical."
Thumper had crashed and was system testing before they could safely fly. "Could it be only stunned?" Someone asked. "Well? Keep shelling its head then." Sienna heard a copy that and again the massive rounds headed down range. Heavy tanks that could moved forward keeping to hills for cover seemingly not in a hurry to reach their positions. Minutes passed as a crew cobbled together another drone before it took to the air, it seemed to take its time reaching that grim.
It lay on its side, black smoke rising by the head, it was odd to watch, but the elder grim seemed to be smoking like a fuse. As if the rest of it didn't know the head was gone.
The lower jaw had been completely blown off along with part of the neck. Thermite still burned where the shells had penetrated. There smoke adding to the grims. Sienna found a place to sit and let the tension drain out of her. "If I had not seen this with my own eyes." She whispered. She heard the C&C members chattering like background geese, gathering the wounded, surveying the surround, making sure if any grim survived. After about an hour someone called an all clear, to stand down.
Sienna lifted her scroll trying to make a call. Finding C&C was like a faraday cage she had to exit to call the White Fang letting her people know, the fighting was over. It was a surprised to her finding it was night, well past ten. Grims Bane, their monitors had hidden that fact. She stepped down into the heat and glass, the melted dirt crunched and broke under her feet, everything that had stayed was burned, steel melted and twisted. One of the light tanks had fire shooting out of two hatches that had blown open. A hundred feet away and she could feel the heat from it.
Half the crew went to stretch and eat. They had one hour to do so. Those who were left cleaned weapons and restocked. To Sienna they acted like combat was still going on and not nearly over, behaving like they were only in a lull.
Sienna found Isaac in medical wrapped up in bandages sedated to the gills mumbling that she was pretty, while their healer tended to the more grievously wounded. The red cat half smiled. Their doctor was a semblance healer with a staff of doctors and aura donors to keep her going. She could have worked anywhere and been paid well for it, but stayed, believing in the dream. Thirty three wounded with ten dead she was told. Sienna nodded grimly to herself, what she was paying them seemed small compared to the benefits she would have, they had paid the heaver price.
Khan walked back to the White Fang buildings the time allowed her to review events and settle her mind. This incident had taken an unexpected turn, how long had that elder leviathan, or Kaiju Isaac had called it, been there? It was a hill, an entire hill. The thing standing on its legs had to have been over a thousand feet tall. It made her half fear the earth it's self. That something could grow so large.
She stopped looking back at Grims Bane, a slow realization solidifying itself into her mind. They had killed it, a never before seen grim of ancient origin. A kid commanding them made it possible. She half smiled shaking her head saying with conviction. "The world has become a strange one."
Hearing the reports Khan found some buildings had earth quake damage, some windows blown out, a flimsy shed had collapsed, one of the bullheads was laying partly on its side, and needed repair on the wings and landing pads. Anything loose was blown away or pushed into buildings. A simple matter to clean up and get repairs going. She wanted to assign Adam to organize a party to survey the new land once Grims Bane declared it clear, but he had returned to Vale.
She wanted to find dust they could mine, farmland they could use, intending to build from scratch a new city by the White Fang for faunas. For now, it had been a long day, and the adrenalin was wearing off, so she turned in.
The next day Sienna Khan awoke to the sound of a jet engine. Opening her eyes she couldn't help but mutter darkly. "Thumper." With annoyance, nothing made sounded anything like it. It roared over her encampment heading back to Mavideniz she assumed. Rolling out of bed she made ready for the day.
It didn't take long to find the entire enclave was awake. Once repairs were underway Khan was heading for the Grims Banes camp, Sienna wanted to know what they were up to. Two vehicles were taken to drive into the Banes main encampment. As she and her guards stopped they found some of the camp had been packed up for transport.
Two of the smaller tanks were chinned down to a heavy flatbed, their blackened and twisted steal a testament to the cost they paid. One had its turret half blown off as the ammo inside had cooked, exploding within the tank. There were no bodies to burry, they had been incinerated.
Four other tanks showed extreme damage, enough that they could not return under there own power. The area around the camp was, bad. Burned, turned into or partly glass. The damage was at least a mile wide getting wider the farther away, and it seemed close to eight miles long.
The medical tent was empty of wounded, Sienna found Thumper had taken the wounded back to Mavideniz. Isaac could not be found, he had recovered and with others was picking over the land, trying to find any grim. With not much to do around the camp Khans vehicles slowly made their way out into the destruction driving towards that body of the huge grim, smoke was still drifting off it hours after it's death.
Sienna could hear her escort gasping and mumbling as they approached. "Still want to fallow Adam? Attack Grims Bane?" She couldn't help but comment as they exited the vehicle. "You think this is frightening, you should have seen it when it was alive."
They found a part of Grims Bane spraying the body down with a smelly chemical. The High Leader stared then frowned disturbed as sections of the Kaijus body bubbled and dissolved. Some were starting small fires with a bulldozer pushing the forests wreckage around so it burned. Tanks towed containers and using a flamethrower were casting large streamers of oily fire into the grims body, which seemed to somehow keep burning. One of the Tanks fired into the grim. "I have questions." Sienna Khan stated blandly.
It took them getting vague directions, twenty minutes to find the young faunas. He was down in a cave. One of those large tanker trucks next to it and a thick hose trailed into the hole. "What's going on?" Sienna asked. She hated to ask a human, but that's all that were standing around, three guarding with one of those AA guns and two tending that tanker truck.
"Bunch of grim pools down there." He answered watching a measuring meter spin slowly telling him how much was left in the tank. "This stuff makes it so they can't spawn." Then he talked into his mike asking Isaac if he could come back to the surface, the boss was here wanting to talk to him. He nodded and turned off the pump. "Should be up in a few, there paring off to see if there's any more ponds down there."
"Are you saying grim spawn? How?" Sienna almost leaned into this human letting him know this was not a request. "Well, Isaac will explain it better, but we found by testing that grim can grow out of grim oil. With that big Kaiju over there there's a lot of grim pools that can and have sunk into the ground, smaller grim can grow from them." He stopped and leaned into the truck in a rather disarming way asking. "Haven't you ever wondered why grim can come back so quickly to a place where they were cleared out?"
"Hay!" Called out a young voice. "What brings you and your armed escort way out here?" Isaac asked. Then before Sienna could answer Isaac asked the operator. "You ok?" He nodded. "Your going to have to give our employer the whole grim respawing info dump." Isaac looked at Sienna then at the hole and seemed undecided. Then the operator starting laughing almost spitting out his words. "Hay boss, themes the breaks, ya can't hunt grim all the time."
He sighed and seemed to deflate. "Ok, ok, short version is for every one hundred Beowolve sized grim in a zone you have to kill them over five hundred times to completely get rid of them. Now hear me out, back in camp I'll give you alive demonstration."
"Grim turn into dissipating dust or ash when they die, right? That ash can group into a droplet, which will spawn a small, I mean small Beowolve, that thing will grow into a big one in less then a week. After we guess a year grow bone spikes. That Kaiju over there, still smoking can with its body spawn over a thousand colossus or two hundred leviathan grim in time. Thermite with an iron mix burns it." He motioned to the tanker. "This gas were putting on and in it dissolves the flesh rendering this grim oil inert."
Isaac led the surprised Khan over to the group working on the Kaijus body and had a sample taken by shoving a container into drawing out some grim. They returned to the camp, then getting a beaker in the medical tent for the demonstration. "Ok, now using this nothing happens, right? We found the grim needs to dissipate first before the respawning can happen." Isaac had the medical staff fetch him a small armored case. From it he took out a quart sized container. "Now this, is filtered grim, after it died." With an eyedropper he placed three drops into a beaker. Sienna and her escort collectively gasped or muttered angrily surprised at the newly formed Beowolve. With some ready alcohol they doused the baby grim, killing it. "Gas or fire is the only way to one shot these things."
He motioned with a thumb at the hill sized body. "This thing has got to go, the sooner, the better. Thumper left with the causalities and is coming back with more gas and were going to use Thumpers jet wash to spray gas on this thing, I don't know how much this is going to take, but a combination of fuel, bulldozing un-burnt wood and burning it should help.
"I don't see any grim spawning around us." Khan stated flatly. Isaac pointed down. When Siennas eyes widened he nodded his head. "There's about a hundred people down there killing grim and sniffing out pools, when we find one, we gas it, so far if the cave sizes are an indicator, it seems all the larger grim were brought to the surface, which is good for us as the grim down there are young. Now my guess is who ever is guiding these grim intended to attack you soon and put all their eggs in one basket. Sienna turned and studied this hill of a grim, clearly seen even at this distance and sighed turning to Isaac she needed information and she hated asking for it.
As if reading her mind Isaac handed her a memory stick. "Everything we know about grim and how to kill them. Lab tests, the works." Then smiled at her surprised face. "Also how to make a sensor to find grim, and a blueprint for making electricity, using water pressure."
Khan looked at the chip in her hands. "How did you? I, I don't know what to say, this will make a huge difference in our lives." Isaac gave her a lopsided grin. "All part of the service when you hire Grims Bane. No offence to my troops, there more then great, but faunas I'm finding do get the short end of the stick, a lot more then I thought. We have one of these dams, it provides electricity to everything we have, but if you build one, don't forget back up. As a central target, if it's destroyed everything downstream of it gets flooded and you will have no power, so build with backups and flooding in mind, dust I found can sit for a long time if not needed."
It would be almost eight hours before Thumper returned. Everyone pulled back watching the craft dangle hoses a long ways from the craft and doing the equivalent of crop dusting the grims body. As expected the wash from the jet engines sprayed the gas over a large area. "Well it didn't catch fire, that's a plus."
As Thumper returned for more supplies. Isaac let Sienna Khan know this would be the last load, they were simply running out of gas, thermite and white phosphorous. Who could have believed a grim could get this big.
Grims Bane was taking shifts so they could work around the clock, as night settled it seemed to Sienna Khan that the humans were not showing any difficulty moving in the dark.
Sienna noted the people wearing some strange eyewear. "To see in the dark." Isaac had told her, caves get black out dark, humans, even faunas can't see, this helps every one along. He explained. Sienna could only shake her head at his naivety, he just didn't understand this weapon in human hands would level the night time playing field. His thinking she knew was if it help kill grim it was good for all.
Soon they were back in C&C getting the total damage and inventory. Someone had estimated how much of the body remained and what it could create. The watchers gave Isaac an update.
"Isaac. I ordered a seismic survey team to head down here. Thumper is brining them and the last of the fuel tankers. Three days after they arrive we should have a good lock on what's down there, also we brought some people with earth semblances to help us move around." Isaac nodded then complemented them and headed for an empty chair.
Once sited he faced Sienna Khan. "What I see here is this is going to be a long term project, one Grims Bane can't complete, we simply don't have the money for it. We can supply you with people and the needed equipment to keep these grim that will respawn down there to a minimum. You could send some people to our camp and the instructors will train your people to properly fight grim."
He sighed leaning back on the chair looking frustrated. "This is a mess." He scowled looking at his scroll he made an offer. "What I can also do is keep in touch, and send some tankers your way as I can with equipment to help your crew so this thing can be completely neutralized."
"You use this, fuel, in your vehicles?" Khan asked. When Isaac nodded Sienna seemed to think for a bit. "I would like, and consider your task completed, if we could get a blueprint of the engines you use with this fuel."
"You want to get away from using dust?" Isaac asked. Miss Khan nodded. "Enough to forgo training? Make your own equipment? This fuel is volatile, will vaporize under low tempters, the equipment to make it is complex, even automated it takes time to build."
"Are you saying we are incapable of making this fuel?" Isaac shook his head. "I'm saying you turn the wrong valve at the wrong time, or don't fallow strict safety procedures you will have an explosion that will make the ones you saw look small."
"This, fuel, is that dangerous?" Khan watch Isaac nod with tired eyes. "Why do you use it? And how do you keep your equipment from blowing up?" Sienna heard him sigh.
"Those two tanks they were more out in the open, didn't retreat far enough, so ya, breath clipped them, and it heated up the tank, fuel ignited, then the ammo, and it turned into a firecracker." He pushed back into his seat again. "That stuff is great for moving heavy equipment, a lot cheaper then dust, but unless you store it carefully, and away from people, a good distance away, it's kind of useless, save for war."
Sienna looked away. studying the people in the C&C working at their tasks. It seemed to her that more faunas were here now then humans, yet she didn't want to pull the race card, she knew Isaac would not accept the reasoning, he knew, at least understood she wanted this for war, she had to find another way. Sighing she watched this young man child. "Ok, I can understand. Perhaps when you rid the world of grim?" Khan saw him smile with a slight nod.
"If you can send about ten, or fifteen who can stand being around humans, my crew are a good lot, but slights imagined or not could, will cause problems, particularly in the bars." Sienna smirked. "The idea of seeing you drinking is mind boggling." She smiled fully. Isaac shrugged. "Old enough to be killed hunting grim, old enough to drink and smoke." He snorted.
"Not in here." Someone retorted.
Sienna Khan turned the conversation to more practical things, what could her people expect to learn and how. Isaacs grin and someone saying welcome to grim week made her apprehensive. What he showed her was not only unconventional but strangely practical. She left soon after to ask for volunteers. Posting the clips he had downloaded into her scroll what they would be learning and how.
Once settled in her office Sienna Khan called and sent one of her priests to Minstrel. She instructed them to send low risk information gathering groups of her faithful to Mavideniz, settle there with there family's, and learn about, and how this equipment worked. They would work as support for Grims Bane until told to do otherwise. Sending information to her at regular intervals.
Five more days plodded by as Grims Bane cleaned house on the scattered grim. Selling the news footage to the media and collecting the bounty for an unprecedented kill count. The damaged tanks with light escort were taken back to Mavideniz.
The fifty ton surveyor truck was finding caverns scattered under the Kaiju. The Bane as the White Fang started calling them, enlarged any small openings. They also found underground dust deposits and other resources Sienna Khan could use. Twenty or so White Fang members went to learn how to fight grim, becoming to Sienna's eyes strong warriors for it. The Bane made good there promise sending tanker trucks as they could to neutralize the forming pools and what was left of the Kaiju.
Some from other nations wanted to study the huge grim but refused to pay the steep price Khan was asking. Atlas bought samples but no one else. Grims Bane however was allowed full access to the body. Sharing new and insightful ways to permanently kill grim in any form.
A month had passed before the White Fang volunteers returned, telling stores of a never before seen grim capable of causing uncontrolled fear to it's victims, by then the Kaiju looked more like a beached whale, flatting out like an over piled pancake, fires were continuously burning on and around it. It would take the White Fang another three months to burn the Kaiju completely and another two more to rid the underground and surround of spawn.
It just accrued to me that I need to explain what I have done to Remnant, or better said, changed on Remnant.
I have shoved the two continents of Anima and Sanus together, touching together calling them Anima so they didn't look like a mustard blob on a napkin, and I moved Menagerie farther north, it should, where it was, have the same temperatures as Solitas or Atlas, being at the twentieth parallel and all that, near or in the south polar area.
Also the planet is larger by +1 fifth so distances are farther and air is thicker for the same reasons.
The area for Ménage or the gateway to Menagerie as I call it would be at the south end of Anima where it's smashed up to Sanus, I left some southern islands, and Mavideniz is on the nub by the cove below and to the left of Vale. It's a four hour flight to Vale by heavy aircraft and to the White Fang, two hours flight to patch.
Last is dust: The planets mantel is made of dust, have not figured out how much, but a lot, enough to find it like we find oil. I say mantel as earth quakes make things interesting.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa