Here's a quick one before the New Year.
Chapter 21: Russian Winter, Part III
Greg and Ivan
"How many are there?" Alex asked.
"I've counted at least 50." Ivan replied, eyes glued on the drone screen. Turns out, the truck that went outside the wall was dropping off a handful of hostages to a makeshift stockade right at the base of the wall. He initially thought they were more ANTIFA goons until they put their hands up at the sight of other guys pointing weapons at them while being corralled into the stockade. More unsettling was the fact that Ivan could make out the forms of women and children among the hostages.
"I guess we found those missing people." Nick commented.
"What's their status?" Alex asked. He needs a good grasp of their condition before he makes a call.
"They're currently stuffed into a hastily built stockade that is at the base of the wall, yet still slightly out in the open. Based on what we can see from the drone, ANTIFA has been harassing them by shooting at their feet and other means of intimidation. Interestingly enough, despite the harassment, ANTIFA appears to be keeping them alive." Greg answered.
"There hasn't been any call for ransoms or demands to be made…somethings not right." Alex said. Usually when civilians are kept hostage, they're used as leverage by terrorists to obtain a form of monetary or political gain. But Vale is a big city with plenty of places to hide, so why are they keeping them outside the city? What purpose do they serve while the defenses are down and Dust is being moved? Alex is seriously contemplating having Winter call her troops in and sweep this whole area…but now there's hostages involved, and he doesn't want to risk their lives. Then again, something big is obviously going down, and he may have to choose between those 50 or so hostages, and what's going to save the most lives. Shit like this is why he's tough on Beacon students, especially on team leaders like Ruby, Jaune or Coco. It's never easy to make a call like that, but he can at least train them for when the time comes. But for now, it'll rest on his shoulders.
"Shit, they just wasted a couple of the hostages." Ivan said with a bitter undertone. He watched as two hostages were dragged out of the stockade and summarily executed with a shot in the back of the head in front of everybody. Despite not being able to hear, it was obvious the rest of the hostages were panicky and terrified at what transpired. And if that wasn't fucked up enough, they threw the two bodies back into the stockade just to continue the torment.
"Did you copy that?" Greg asked.
"Yeah." Alex replied, frustration present in his voice.
"Should we move in and try to extract them?" It was a full 30 seconds before Greg heard a response.
"Negative, stay where you're at. We'll deal with the hostages soon, but with the perimeter defenses offline, getting them back up is the priority." Alex responded.
"Copy, we'll stay put." As much as it infuriated Greg that people were being tortured by those ANTIFA pukes, for tactical reasons, he and Ivan should stay in their current position.
"Keep scanning the area. There's plenty of empty buildings to keep hostages in…" Alex started to say.
"…Yet they're being held outside the wall." Greg finished for him.
"I know, shit just keeps piling up." Alex commented, knowing Greg's thinking the same.
"We'll radio if we see something."
"Roger."
Alex, Nick and Winter
With little effort, Winter parried the sword heading for her head with her own, and swiftly brought it back around and into the ANTIFA troopers' torso. She had little time to recover, as another enemy appeared and brought a heavy battle axe down that she barely managed to block with her sword. The big brute of man put all his weight down behind his axe, forcing Winter to use both hands to keep the axe from taking her head off. With his immense strength, the ANTIFA thug backed Winter up against the wall. The awkward position kept her from breaking free, but she's not letting this dumbass get the better of her, so she slid her hand towards the button on the handle. With the dagger in hand, she jammed it into his forearm, causing the brute to slightly back off, and give the opportunity for Winter to strike. She kicked forward, knocking him back, then brought up her SMG and emptied its magazine into him. With his Aura shattered, Winter lunged forward and finished him off by thrusting her sword into his mouth. Her face showed no emotion when the man crumpled to the ground, gurgling blood all the way down.
She turned to see Alex grappling with another enemy, and contemplated stepping in to assist. However, he gained the upper hand by twisting the man's arm in an unnatural angle followed by a kick that forced the ANTIFA goon face first into the wall. Alex finished him off with a shot in the back of the head, leaving a blood stain on the wall. To Winter, it was a new feeling, killing people that is. She was trained for most situations including fighting non-Grimm enemies, but practicing is not even close to the real thing. The sensation was difficult to put in words. She didn't enjoy it like some blood thirsty maniac, yet she had no reservations about it either. Winter figured that it must be her sense of duty as a soldier by protecting the innocent by any means necessary.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the yells of Nick flying through the air and into a pile of garbage. The woman who threw him, approached Nick with her mace in hand, ready to crush Nicks' head like a melon. She didn't get far before Nick quickly recovered and fired his rifle, placing two shots dead center of her chest, ignoring her Aura and leaving the woman with a surprised face as the life faded from her eyes.
"You alright Nick?" Alex asked as Nick got up and cleaned the trash off his body.
"Yeah." Nick groaned in response while stretching out his back.
"I'm surprised you can stand. That girl threw you all the way across the room." Winter commented.
"I know, I usually have to pay extra for that kind of treatment from women." Nick jokingly said. Alex lightly chuckled while Winter rolled her eyes at the remark before returning to the task at hand.
"Okay, those stairs will take us back down to ground level and into the generator room." Alex said, pointing to the stairwell.
"But we're going to have to cross through that big open area where all the Dust was going." Nick commented.
"Like Winter said, we're running out of options. If it comes down to it, get ready to shoot our way in. We have to reset the wall defenses." Alex said.
"What about the hostages?" Winter asked.
"Our current objective is to get the defenses back online, but we will rescue them in due time." Alex replied. Winter scowled at that answer.
"They've already killed some of the hostages! We have to recuse them immediately!" Winter exclaimed. She couldn't believe that Alex was putting the lives of hostages second.
"And what's your plan? Have us three move in, rescue them and lead them through a hostile filled environment? Not only would we be putting them in danger, but there'll still be ANTIFA to deal with, and the possibility of explosives in the area makes recusing them right now impractical. Maybe have Greg and Ivan get them? They're too far away to get to them. On top of that, they're keeping a close watch on the area as well as those paladins. Or perhaps we call in reinforcements? I guarantee, as soon as ANTIFA sees one Atlesian ship, those hostages are done for." Alex explained in a semi-sarcastic and annoyed tone. For someone like Winter, Alex couldn't believe she didn't think ahead.
It was there that Winter realized she made one of the most common mistakes a soldier could make: short sighted thinking based on emotion. The immediate need to rescue those in imminent danger overtook her logical side of thinking. Alex was right, rescuing them right now would've been a bad move. Between protecting them and extracting from the area, it just wasn't feasible. Not to mention, the city's northern defenses are down and that effects everybody. She may be the superior fighter, but Alex is proving himself to be the better leader at making decisions.
"You're right." She said with a reluctant sigh. Not wanting to waste anymore time, Alex simply nodded and motioned for the others to follow him down the stairs.
A short while later, the three of them were back on the main level of the wall interior. They crept alongside the hallway, stopping short of large room that led into the main area of the wall and subsequently the generators. The room was spacious and filled with ANTIFA members, but the trio were more focused on the empty Dust crates piled up in and out of the room. Confirming Alex's thoughts, they were indeed using the Dust to make explosives. They watched as two men loaded up a pile of built explosives onto a pallet jack before wheeling it out into the main area. It was a rough estimate, but it looked like there were about 100 shoe box sized explosives charges on the pallet jack. Considering that pallet jacks were coming in and out, coupled with the empty Dust crates and how efficiently ANTIFA seems to be at building these bombs, they must have a huge stockpile of explosives. And they don't look like cheap, hastily made, ghetto-rigged IEDs that the Russians were used to coming across. No, they looked of a much higher, almost military grade quality.
"Come on, we'll cut left to get around this room." Alex said. They passed more and more empty crates of Dust as they continued on. They eventually found an exit and cautiously made their way to it. Within this open area lied the wall support structures and the bulk of ANTIFA's forces, who appeared very preoccupied with constant activities ranging from operating different pully systems while their comrades were strapped into harnesses and were moving about the wall, to routing extremely long wire all over the place. Not to mention the massive pile of explosive charges that runners were moving all over the place.
"Fuck, that's a lot of explosives." Nick commented.
"But what are they doing with them?" Winter asked, before bumping into Alex who suddenly stopped and appeared to be staring upwards. Both Nick and Winter looked to where Alex was…and couldn't believe what they were seeing.
Explosive charges linked together with wire, hundreds of them, as far as they can see, completely lined the wall. Blinking red lights indicated they were armed and ready to go.
"They're going to blow the wall." Alex said, wide eyed in awe at the number of explosives planted alongside the wall.
"Alex, come in!" Greg radioed with a sense of urgency.
"Please tell me its good news." Alex answered.
"There's a huge horde of Grimm heading right for the wall!" Greg practically yelled.
"Of course there is." Alex said ironically. Right then, everything clicked and came together in everyone's head.
"So, they're torturing hostages in order to draw the Grimm in." Nick started.
"Then they disable the defenses." Winter followed up.
"And now they're going to blow the wall to allow Grimm to pour into the city." Alex finished off.
"Fuck." Alex, Greg, Nick, Ivan, and surprisingly Winter, all said at once.
A/N:
How are our heroes going to handle this?
Well, you'll find out next year.
...
Haha, I know, that joke is so original.
Anyway, hope you all have a good New Year. I'll catch ya on the flip side.
Hawk out.