Chapter 11
'Winter?' I think to myself, looking at the woman pointing a sword at me from above, 'Of course, the ship is Winter's; I didn't remember it from when I was younger, it was from the show.'
"I will not ask again; identify yourself." Winter says again, not even giving me time to answer her as I roll to the side, just missing a sword that would have impaled me.
Rolling to my feet, I jumping back to create some distance, silently watching as she point's her sword towards me once again.
"Surround him! He must not be allowed to escape!" She shouts, as a veritable platoon of at least fifty soldiers begin to surround me; the barrels of their guns all aimed at me.
'Ah, they must have been the containers.' I think to myself, noticing several now opened containers as I ready my sword, still in its sheathed mode and point it towards Winter. The soldiers that are surrounding me leave a massive hole in the formation meaning that there is a direct path to Winter's, of course this is the most well-guarded area considering she is standing there.
This was going to be very difficult; not only am I surrounded, but Winter is among them. If there was even a possibility of me winning, I would have to use my semblance, which she would recognise, and I didn't want that to happen; I'd rather not have the first we meet after 3 years be when I am working for bandits.
"The General was correct; there was an information leak…" She mutters under her breath, before addressing me.
"You are from the Branwen Tribe, aren't you?" her voice containing strong distaste, and a hint of anger.
"…" I silently observe her, not wanting to show any familiarities with how I usually act, lest she realise it's me.
However at my silence, she activates something on her sword, ejecting a second from the one she is holding.
'That's the sword I remember from the show.' I think to myself as I watch her get into a dual wielding stance. When we were younger, she had two separate swords; it seems she combined them when she had joined the specialist unit.
Wait, why is she already getting serious, doesn't she usually read the field, order some of her men to fire to gauge my reaction? That would be the best bet to get an idea of an unknown opponent's strength. Well, at least she isn't using her….
Quickly sidestepping to the right, avoiding a sudden thrust, missing me by the skin of my teeth, with her thrust slicing the clothing around my neck, yet not drawing blood, interrupting me, not with even a chance to think, I quickly parry her parrying dagger with Revenant's sheath form; before jumping back and putting her ship to my back.
'….Glyphs…' I think as I see the Glyph she activated behind her.
Firing a shot from the tip of my sheath, she puts up another Glyph, before removing it when it had blocked the shotgun bullets. As she does, I throw three throwing knives in quick succession, one behind the other. She swipes her sword, deflecting the first, before repeating the same action again with her dagger. However, the third was the real attack; as she connects with the third, it explodes, releasing a thick cloud of steam, creating a smokescreen.
'While it would be nice to see how far I've come since we last met, it would have to wait until more….equal circumstances.' I think to myself, turning on my heels and making a beeline towards the entrance to her ship from which I was so elegantly blown from earlier.
Making my way through the ship, I quickly find an empty bridge. Thinking rationally, that man who I was about to knock out before Winter's 'timely' intervention would have most likely told them to evacuate.
Sitting down to access what I assumed to be the Captain's flight terminal, I quickly jump to the left, avoiding two swords that had come down to cleave me in two.
'I seriously think people try to sneak up on me too much, it's getting kind of repetitive now.' I think to myself as I dodge another strike which seems slower than her previous attacks. As I dodge each strike, they inadvertently break a control console, or something that looks important. I guess I'll be taking the big ship after all.
Blocking a blow with my sheath, I am thrown out the window from the force, landing in the middle of the soldiers. Unlike what you would expect from Atlas, none of the soldiers are androids, so they are better at improvisation, shown by how they estimated where I would depart from the ship, although there aren't as much as before, only a fraction, so I assume they had several possible 'exit' points.
Getting up, I see Winter jumps through the window; I'm lucky she is aiming for my capture, or else I would have been killed long ago, that's what I've learned from our short….encounter.
"There are few members of the Branwen Tribe who could last so long, so I will give you one more chance to end things peacefully; identify yourself." Winter states as she points one of her blades toward me.
"…"
'Why is she so insistent I'm from the Branwen Tribe? She is correct, but she shouldn't know…There must be a mole.' I think to myself, as good a time as any to hand in my 'resignation'.
While I respond with silence, Winter goes for another thrust, this time towards my neck, but I force her to defend as I fire a shot from point blank range.
Using the confusion, I use this chance to use my semblance which is unseen by anyone thanks to the blast. The ice spreads all around, capturing the feet and making its way to the knees of everyone here. How am I able to do this without dust? You see, ever since I managed to use the gravity effect without dust when I was five, I had been researching my semblance, testing it out with different types of dust and I realised something; each dust type effect the design in the middle in different ways, and by changing the design on my own, I could achieve the same results. I had even made huge strides in interpreting the language around the outside, even if I can't understand it. While I haven't used it in combat yet, I had realised during my recent encounters with powerful individuals ever since leaving home that I have to start, if I had during the fight with Cinder, or even now if I could have fought with it, things might turn out differently; I have two years until Beacon, I don't want something to hold me back by then, I need to get stronger. This experience, and the fight with Cinder has shown me just how weak I am, I need strength if I want to be able to change the events of the show to be in our favour, strength I don't have yet.
But for now, I need to get away.
Running towards the larger, transport ship I from my original escape plan, I make my way on board. It seems all armed personnel had been in that group of soldiers, so I just pushed the people away from the console as I put in my scroll to the terminal; it was programmed with a route and put the ship into autopilot, resulting in the ship taking off almost immediately.
As the crew members shouted and ran for the exit due to the hijacking, I had a look over the security camera, it seems that they really did load the ship with a container, whether it's filled with dust, I can't tell. Another piece of good news, as I have taken off and the ship is flying through the air, it seems Winter has only now gotten free, I did make sure she had a bit more ice, so it's natural, and considering that many of the soldiers got free at the same time as her, I had no one who could follow me.
"Wait… What is that?"
###
"UNIT 2, unload the cannon! UNIT 4, prepare the ammunition! UNIT's 1 and 3, inform local authorities and prepare a ship!" Winter shouts as she frees herself, issuing orders to those under her.
"""Yes, Sir!"""
"But Miss Schnee, with the dust we have loaded on board the ship, the resulting explosion from the cannon could wipe out not only the ship, but possibly this facility." One soldier says, the cannon being the main focus of the facility. It uses high grade dust crystals to condense and fire a large beam of concentrated dust.
"We will be waiting until he is several clicks away, just inside its range. The General has issued instructions to begin testing its effect on firing at refined dust, but the report has said it has not been started; Therefore now will give us valuable data." Winter replies coldly at the soldier who questioned her orders.
"Yes, Sir!" He shouts before leaving, not wanting to dispute further with the senior officer.
However as he began to walk off and join his unit, taking a look towards the ship's direction, he sees a swarm attacking the large ship.
"Wha…." He was about to say, before being interrupting by someone shouting, "GRIMM!"
###
"Goddamit." I say as I throw away the mask I was wearing, revealing my annoyed expression. I had been spending the better half of an hour fighting these Grimm after the swarm of Manticores began attacking the ship.
Jumping back and landing on a magic circle, tilted upwards slightly, I rocket forward using the magic circle to increase my speed. As I move like a speeding bullet, I pierce the body of a Manticore, before kicking off it, as I use an ice magic circle to freeze its wings, causing it to take out a Manticore in its fall to the ground and I slice the head off another, causing all three to evaporate at the same time. I had unsheathed my sword almost instantly after firing off its remaining shots, and I had long since ran out of throwing knives. Luckily for me, there doesn't seem to be a leader to them, meaning they are mostly young Manticores, but the pack itself is quite large, hence why I have been getting pissed off, especially when you consider they are destroying the ship as well as fighting me.
I had made my way out to make sure that very thing didn't happen as the autopilot continued on course, but with their sheer number of the swarm, and area of the ship, it was inevitable they would make their way inside. Luckily I am the only one on-board, unluckily that means they are my problem, but I can practise using my magic circles in combat, a win-lose-win scenario.
KUURRRAAAAAHH!
Suddenly an ear shatteringly loud screech echoes through the air just as I land back on the ship, coming from above. As I look up, I see a huge manticore, definitely larger and older than the others, diving towards me.
Having no time to think, I instantly activate time dilation, followed but what I have name as a haste magic circle allowing me to quickly get out of the area, just in time as I get not even five meters away and it crashes into the ship, going straight through the metal exterior and from the resulting explosions, not stopping. It wasn't until I felt the ship take a short, but quick jolt downwards until I realised that it had went straight through the ship.
'The older ones are meant to be wiser, in what words is a kamikaze attack wise?'
###
"It's going down! It's going down!" One of the nearby soldiers shouts. The ship had travelled further inland; however it was still visible to those at the facility. They have prepared the cannon and been on standby with their weapons drawn, ready to attack any Grimm that stray towards them, however they seem to be focused on the large ship and after it got far enough away, there weren't any.
"All men, stand on guard, it is still within range of possible damage to the facility, so UNIT 4 wait with the cannon, when the ship goes down, open fire!" Winter shouts, she had been watching the ship since the swarm had begun. She would watch until either the swarm destroyed the ship, or it exited the range that danger might befall the facility and fire the cannon; this was the first scenario, however considering the amount of Grimm, which didn't seem to dwindle, it could be expected, the shocking thing was how long it lasted.
"Miss Schnee, the ship… Look!" A soldier says as he points towards the ship.
It was on fire, visible from even this distance. Considering the dust on board was all fire type dust, it must have been ignited and exploded when the larger Manticore dove through, Winter thought as she watched the flaming ship descend like a meteor. She couldn't see it crash, but she could definitely see the resulting explosion. Not caring about the dead bandit anymore, she began issuing orders.
"Fire the cannon! The Grimm have changed targets to us!"
###
"Ira?" A red themed girl asks me, bringing me out from my stupor and drawing my attention to her.
"Are you okay?" A white themed girl continues, "You seemed kind of dazed."
"That girl over there just reminded me of the last time I saw my family." I said, pointing towards a girl who has been terrorising the security staff.
"Ooh, he never talks about his family, isn't that right Melanie?" The red themed girl says.
"Yeah, it's making me a bit jealous Miltia." The white themed girl replies with a teasing tone, followed by a nod from her twin.
"I don't want to interrupt your fun girls, but get to work, whadd'ya think I pay ya for!" A man wearing red shades shouts as he gets up from behind the counter, signalling for the girls to go and handle the loud guest.
"And you, I'll pay." He says as he takes his shades off, showing how he is serious.
Looking between the guest and Revenant, my sword that is sitting against the counter, I reply, "I refuse, I'd prefer to just watch."
"You… fine, I'll pay double." He replies as he gets a rocket launcher from underneath the counter.
"I am not someone who will do as you say if you wave a few lien around, 'Junior', you should do well to remember that. However I was enjoying myself, so if you want my services, it's 5 times the usual." I reply, while I had been took some jobs from the man, I wasn't a mercenary, nor was he my boss, so his attitude pissed me off and when considering who the girl was, if he wanted me to work, he'd have to pay quite a high price, something he wouldn't want to do….usually.
"You fucking…Haaahh….Fine, just get her out of here." He says, his annoyance leaving his voice as he sighs, turning it into resignation.
I mean, I might not be a mercenary, but I'll be needing money for when I attend Beacon, had to get it somewhere, right?
"I've accepted the request, be sure to get the payment ready Junior." I reply, grabbing Revenant at my side before strolling onto the dance floor, just as she defeated the two girls.
"I guess this means you're next, what's wrong, angry I hurt your girlfriends?" The girl says as she flicks her blond hair over her shoulder.
Smirking, I get into my stance, one hand behind my back while the other raises the sword. I'd rather not talk about my relationship with the twins, especially considering this girls personality.
"Ooh, the strong silent type, let's party." She says, rushing in and swinging with a straight left, which I tilt my head to the side and avoid. She follows up with a right jab, which I duck under, causing her to bring up a knee while I step back. Extending her leg when her knee is raised, I sidestep and push her forward with the side of my sheath.
"Fight properly!" She shouts as she recovers from the stumble forward, turning around with a massive left hook, which I dodge by stepping back to just outside the range; smirking at the girl, reminiscent of how she was taunted, or rather will be taunted, by an ice-cream themed girl.
Using her gauntlets recoil to spin herself around, she turns and attempts to hit me with the back of her right fist, which I again dodge and kick her in the side, sending her a few meters through the air.
As she gets up, she reloads her weapon and charges at me, this time I charge into her as well, reaching her quickly and delivering a quick, but forceful thrust into her solar plexus, she flies back, breaking a window and landing on the street outside.
Following her out, I see a familiar looking girl in a red cape standing over her.
"Yang?"
A/N
Well, we had another timeskip, meaning we will be getting into the events in the show!
Whenever I say sheath, I don't mean an independent sheath, but Revenant whenever it is in its sheathed form. I'm only saying this incase someone thought I was taking about an independent sheath that he wields alongside Revenant, which he doesn't considering his sheath is a mechanism of the handguard.
What's the relationship between the twins and Ira? It's a bit….complicated.
SPOILERS
It won't continue when he enters Beacon. I plan on using it in the future, but the relationship will have ended by then, he wasn't in love with the twins. I thought I should explain incase some thought I had chosen them as his love interest, which I haven't.