Chapter 3: Sheathing a Sword
Less than half an hour of walking later, in which Ms. Goodwitch declared that she wanted Shirou to meet her boss, some guy named Ozpin, and having successfully bullied Shirou into agreeing, Shirou looked a robot in the face.
And shot another carbon fiber arrow into its chest, rupturing its electronics and crashing it to the ground before moving onto the next arrow and robot.
Next to him, Ms. Goodwitch had made another purple barrier, blocking the shots of the robots, before firing more of her small needles in her crop and destroying the smaller robots.
However, the big boy wasn't so easy. The large, two lane wide robot was charging at the two of them, energy guns firing only for Glynda to block them again with her mystical barrier-shield.
Shirou traced a plain sword-arrow, nothing notable about it other than he could fire it from Archer's bow without breaking it to pieces and that it was cheap to project.
But his Od, his magical energy, was very low from overpowering the second Caladbolg. He needed cheap weapons if he wanted to continue to fight.
And somewhere in Vale, people were dying. They needed a hero to save them.
A pity that a villain like him, who had sacrificed a world to save his sister, was part of the group of heroes who were fighting to defend them.
But there wasn't that much difference between a hero and a villain, Shirou sardonically thought as the sword flew through the air and smashed the head of the large robot, causing it to fall. In combat, they are practically the same. Both kill their opponents so that the people behind them will live.
As the crash of the last large automated robot sounded through the street, Shirou cocked his head as he heard a distant but loud roar. Loud enough to be heard over the sounds of distant gunfire.
Beside him, Glynda paled and whispered, barely loud enough for Shirou to hear. "No."
Shirou turned to face her, hands hovering, ready to trace and grab Kanshou and Bakuya.
"No," she said again, staring out to where the roar had come from.
"What is it?" Shirou said as he glanced at where she was staring. "Is there a dangerous robot or Grimm somewhere nearby?"
"A Wyvern," she said, horror in her voice.
Shirou stilled.
"A wyvern?" he asked as he reinforced his eyes to better see, eyes scanning the night sky for the Magical Beast. "Like a member of a lesser species of dragons?"
Wyverns were dangerous foes. They were weaker than most dragons and the majority of wyverns never even made it past the Monstrous category of Magical Beasts. But most people wouldn't dare fight a wyvern as it was still significantly stronger than the average person or magus.
Weaker than a true dragon was a very, very broad category with the majority of life form falling under that classification.
Admittedly, Shirou did have Balmung, Gram, Arondight, Ascalon and Georgios's spear, but he didn't have any of them prepared as arrows.
Then again, Archer had almost never fought dragons as they usually weren't a threat to humanity. No threat, no need to make a missile to kill one, no dragon killing arrow to inherit.
And besides, if a dragon was trying to kill people, then Archer had several weapons, each infused with the might of a dragon-slaying legend to deal with one in closer combat.
The problem was, Shirou didn't have enough Od left in him to fire more than one good strike of any dragon-slaying weapon. He couldn't afford to miss if he tried.
"No, not a dragon," Glynda corrected. "A Grimm Wyvern. A flying Grimm, capable of making new Grimm from the black ichor that falls off its body."
"A Grimm that makes other Grimm?" Shirou asked, wincing as he finally spotted the Grimm Wyvern, its red, black and white armless body definitely matching both of the profiles of a wyvern and a Grimm. "I can see that that might be problematic."
Especially if it was this world's equivalent of a dragon. It certainly bore a resemblance to the wyverns of legend.
Shirou started reviewing the dragon-slaying weapons for usage. Ascalon and Arondight were melee dragon slaying weapons, depending on St. George and Lancelot's speed and toughness to get in close. Siegfried's Balmung was a bit too powerful for Shirou's low od reserves to project and then use right now. And the dragon was too far away for him to throw St. George's spear or chuck Sigurd's Gram at it.
"We thought it was dead. That they had killed it after burying it under tons of rock while it was asleep," Glynda said, breathing getting faster and faster in her terror. "They were heroes for stopping it. They managed to save Vale."
"And now it is back," Shirou said grimly, drawing his bow, preparing to project one of Gilgamesh's low-ranking Noble Phantasms to test the strength of the Grimm.
"Yes," Glynda said as she fought her fear to get herself back under control.
"And too far away for me to hit," Shirou said, calculating how far he would need to shoot to hit it. Archer could do 4 kilometers but Shirou needed a lesser distance to be certain of a hit. And the dragon was still over 60 kilometers away.
A snort of laughter reached him and he glanced towards the beautiful woman who was covering her mouth while shaking.
"My apologies," she said, trying to restrain her laughter. "But it is about as easy to kill as a Goliath. It is flying, fast, and never alone for long. Plus it is at least a hundred- no, must be fifty kilometers from here now. But…" she trailed off, obviously remembering how Shirou had killed an entire herd of Goliaths.
If only he hadn't created a crater the size of the street in the process. It would take a lot of cement to fix that.
Poor road repair workers.
Shirou redirected his thoughts from the mess he made on the city to focus on the incoming figure of the Wyvern whose image had already more than doubled in size since Shirou had first spotted it.
"Yeah," Shirou agreed. "If it is anything like a dragon, I probably will need one of my most powerful weapons to even fight it. And I don't have the time to turn one of those swords into an arrow."
Not to mention turning a weapon into an arrow capable of being fired by Archer's bow was a process of trial and error, likely to end up with the weapon exploding as something went wrong and the weapon decided to become a Broken Noble Phantasm because the alteration had turned out incompatible with the weapon's nature.
"Are there real-life dragons?" Glynda asked curiously.
"They exist even though no one has seen one for generations," Shirou informed her. "They like to keep to themselves and to them, killing humans isn't much different from us killing an ant."
"I see," Glynda swallowed. "Well, more relevantly, can you kill the Wyvern? I don't think I can, especially after the earlier fights drained most of my Aura."
"The possibility exists," Shirou said, keeping his eye on the dragon. "The problem is, nothing I can do has enough range to reach it from here and still be effective. I can try to make one into an arrow but that type of experimentation tends to be rather explosive and best done under controlled circumstances."
"Ah," Glynda winced as she eyed the surroundings. They were pretty close to people as they could hear the screams of terrified civilians, soldiers and White Fang as they received wounds from each other or Grimm or Atlas's robots. "Well, if you do see a chance to take it out, do it. With the Wyvern on the battlefield, we can't win until it is down."
"Got it," Shirou said as he projected five plain nano-edge blades and shot them off at a line of robots that had just turned onto their street. "But it'll have to get pretty close for me to succeed and I'm running low on energy myself."
"How close?"
"About a hundred meters," Shirou estimated the range of Saint Georgios's spear and Balmung.
Glynda hissed at the distance.
Yeah, Shirou agreed with her. Against a flying foe, that was practically melee range. But he didn't have enough energy to pull out multiple tries. He would need to succeed on an early strike.
And they were inside the city. If the Wyvern got close to them, it would have already passed by hundreds, no, thousands of civilians.
Shirou frowned as he realized something.
"The Wyvern's veering away from us," he warned. "Headed east."
"The east?" Glynda repeated as she frowned. Shirou didn't know the map of Vale that well. Maybe there was something that it wanted in the east? "Why the east? Only a few districts and Beacon are east of here."
"Don't know," Shirou said, shrugging. "But unless we move that direction, I won't be able to hit it."
Ms. Goodwitch hesitated before nodding as the two started walking forward again. "Alright. We'll try to get our hands on a Bullhead to catch up with it. We can't chase it on the ground, otherwise we'll just waste all our strength chasing it around."
A burst of gunfire sounded from the corner they were about to turn. Glynda readied her weapon and Shirou grabbed Kanshou and Bakuya. He needed their boost to physical resistance to survive gunfire.
And then he charged out into the midst of the street, determined to take any hostiles by surprise.
"No, wait!" Ms. Goodwitch called after him. Shirou didn't bother to obey.
The fighting was in front of him, lines of robots out in the open, trying to gun down soldiers crouched behind whatever cover they could find, mostly stones and rubble from the nearby buildings, though a few soldiers were huddling behind some large, battered and pockmarked shields.
For Shirou, this was target practice with all the people that needed to be saved behind cover.
Shirou threw Kanshou and Bakuya, aiming for the Married Blades to hit the robots at the ends before their attraction to each other pulled them towards the center.
The two Noble Phantasms curved through the air, not stopped by the inferior metals of modern Atlas.
Shirou waited for the right moment before projecting copies into his hands, causing the already thrown weapons to arc back into the lines of robots towards their new copies.
And then the androids were turning around to face him, guns at the ready.
Shirou reinforced his nerves and arms, increasing his reaction speed as he prepared to deflect the bullets.
Fortunately, the robots had very good shooting algorithms. As long as Shirou guarded his vitals with the two falchions, not a single shot would get past his defense.
But the sudden purple barrier made that a moot point as all the bullets deflected off the just appeared shield.
"What were you thinking!" Ms. Goodwitch rebuked loudly and worriedly from behind him. "You don't have Aura right now! If they shot you, you would die!"
Well, nice of you to care miss. But what is actually important is that we have people to rescue.
Shirou disregarded the lecture as he concentrated on the free flying pair of Kanshou and Bakuya which were getting too close for comfort to his new pair. So Shirou jumped back, his reinforced legs arcing him over the professional but beautiful woman even as he used the new distance between him and the barrier to throw the swords around her barrier. The other two blades curved, right before hitting the purple barrier and followed the two newer blades back into collection of robots.
Shirou crouched as he landed, watching his Noble Phantasms wreak havoc among the ranks of the robots, their mystical properties and sharpness easily cutting through the robots.
"Weren't you listening when I told you that if we died, then the people behind us would die also?" Glynda demanded, wheeling around to face Shirou, her purple barrier guarding her back from the ever-decreasing number of bullets coming their way. "I don't speak to hear myself talk, you know!"
"Yeah, but we're fine," Shirou pointed towards the soldiers who were poking out their heads and guns to fire on the much smaller number of robots. "We're uninjured and the soldiers needed some help."
"But leaping before you look is a fast way to change that," Glynda chastised, her stern frown on show as she tried to pound something into Shirou's thick head. "The new Altasian Knight-200s are brand new, cutting edge tech. If you aren't careful, they can kill a full Huntsman, especially if your Aura happens to be broken."
Shirou could understand what she was getting at. But he was the bone of his sword so she would need something stronger than cautionary logic to penetrate through his skull.
He probably shouldn't be proud of that.
Besides, he was ready to protect himself. He doubted that the android robots would be able to hurt him while he had Kanshou and Bakuya and their own precise targeting algorithms.
Behind Ms. Goodwitch, Shirou watched as the robots continued to be decimated second by second, most of them sliced open and the few remaining drawing the fire of the soldiers as the androids fell.
And when the copies of Kanshou and Bakuya weren't going to hit the last few, Shirou dismissed the swords, causing them to vanish as they spun through the air.
"Well, let's make sure they can't," Shirou said, walking around Ms. Goodwitch, projecting a new arrow for his bow to use. "If they are all down, then there isn't anything that can kill us."
"I know that," Glynda Goodwitch snapped as she turned around towards the robots and shot a dozen needles, downing the last of the robots. "But you need to learn self-preservation. You'll be having classes on it after this emergency is resolved."
"Looking forward to it," Shirou said sarcastically as he stored the arrow in his quiver. No point in wasting it. In the midst of all this fighting, even if his dual Origin and Element meant that he could project ordinary weapons at a fraction of a cost, he didn't want to waste the energy in projecting a new arrow, not when he could store an old one for later use.
But returning to Glynda's comment, Shirou had already learned a lot from her.
For one thing, magic wasn't a secret on this world. It just went by a different name and was limited to one system. Probably used Aura as another term for od or mana and used Semblance for spells.
Eh, a new world, new terms. It was amazing enough that Shirou had been able to communicate with people in Mistral despite the initial language barrier.
"Ma'am! Sir!" one of the soldiers saluted as they came out from behind cover. "Thank you for your help!"
"At ease lieutenant," Glynda Goodwitch said to the officer as Shirou studied the man. His armor was dinged from bullets but he wasn't in bad condition. "What's the situation?"
"Across the city? Cr- Bad, Ma'am," the man grimaced under his helmet. "The numbers of the Grimm have decreased in this sector and in the neighboring sectors but the Knights and Paladins are still on the loose. The White Fang have retreated but several VIPs and their escorts have already died at their hands. And we are close enough to the da- dangerous, overran, hostile flagship that we can't get air support."
Glynda winced at that. Shirou waited patiently.
The best he could do now was to go to the center of the fighting or enemy strongholds and take them down. But he didn't know where those were so getting information was the prudent thing to do. And Ms. Goodwitch was already getting good answers from the man.
"Public morale is sh- in the toilet and the criminal elements are up in arms and just as likely to shoot us as they are the White Fang or Grimm if we approach them," the officer continued, editing his language in the presence of a lady. "Beacon is nearly overran by hostiles and they are evacuating the wounded right now but are still fighting."
"What about the students? The staff?" Ms. Goodwitch asked in alarm and concern.
"Unknown, Ma'am," the officer reported apologetically. "That isn't a matter for my platoon. Our orders are to maintain this side of the safe zone for the evacuees."
"How are you receiving evacuees?" Goodwitch asked, frowning. "Wouldn't the flagship prevent people from evacuating from Beacon?"
"That's the da- thing, Ma'am." The officer reported in a firm voice. "The flagship lets passenger ships come and go but opens fire on anything that gets close that isn't Grimm. It also shoots any f- armed ships that are in range."
"Very well," Ms. Goodwitch said firmly. "Thank you, officer. Do you know where the Wyvern is?"
"No, Ma'am. We haven't seen it here." The lieutenant said before hesitating. "The captain might know though."
"I see," she said pensively before shaking herself. "Where is your captain?"
"At the landing zone, Ma'am. He's managing the defense of this zone and taking count of the refugees," The officer waved to one of his wounded men whose thigh was bleeding from a bullet wound. "If you could take Private Cyan to the medics, we'll appreciate it. She'll also point the way for you."
"Thank you, lieutenant," Glynda thanked the man who saluted before turning his attention to managing his troops. Shirou had already left his position to get close to the wounded private. Helping to get her onto his back, Shirou stood up to find Glynda standing still and looking at him.
"What are you waiting for, Ms. Goodwitch?" Shirou raised an eyebrow at the motionless woman. "Time's a wasting."
"Call me Glynda," Glynda smiled, as she started walking into the safe zone, traces of stress bleeding off of her as Shirou fell in beside her. "Anyone who can kill a Goliath with me can call me by my first name."
The private made a choking sound from Shirou's back.
Shirou nodded. "In that case, feel free to call me by my first name as well. Although you have been doing it for a while so it really doesn't mean anything."
"It's easier to say," Glynda replied, a faint blush of embarrassment on her cheeks. "My apologies if it was forward of me."
"Nah, no biggie," Shirou waved it off. "Most of my enemies like to yell my last name at me so I'm more used to it coming from people trying to kill me. Although, most of my friends are either dead or have tried to kill me too, so I guess I'm used to both of my names being yelled at me."
"Sounds… rather unfriendly," Glynda was looking at him in worry.
Shirou shrugged. "They were trying to force my sister into a fate worse than death. I disagreed and we fought it out. Now it is over."
A beat of silence.
"That isn't how most friendships end, you know," Glynda commented. "Rather atypical to tell the truth. Most people don't like their friendships to end in literal fights over their sister."
The private nodded fervently on Shirou's back, the motion vibrating through his shirt.
"Well, I had an unusual life," Shirou chose not to mention being raised as an assassin's assistant, helping to kill warlords, evil magus, and villains until they settled down in Fuyuki hoping to use a young girl, his new sister, with a unique ability in order to save the world in one stroke.
But that was then, Shirou reminded himself before looking up at the starry sky, towards the broken moon. How would Miyu like this sky in comparison to their old world's sky? "Wouldn't give it up for anything though."
Glynda hummed, a note of agreement in her voice before silence fell over the trio. It wasn't an awkward silence. More of a reflective one.
"The Wyvern's at Beacon," the captain said bluntly. "The flagship isn't firing on it either but neither have they moved for a while. Most of our men there have already fallen to the White Fang and their Grimm drops but the student Huntsmen and Huntresses are managing to hold ground. For now, at least. The casualties are mounting and the number of wounded is increasing by the minute. To make matters worse, we haven't heard from Professor Ozpin for, um," he glanced down at the long list of logs visible before grimacing and looking back up. "for quite some time now."
Shirou and Glynda had dropped off Private Cyan at the clinic taken over by the medics before going next door to the Captain's command post. Here they found the captain using his scroll to communicate intelligence and orders from and to his superiors and subordinates as the army fought throughout the city while some technicians updated the holographic colored map of Vale hanging in the air beside the man.
Glynda inhaled sharply at that.
That was the worst news she could have received. Ozpin would never have gone out of communication while Vale was in this state unless something happened to him. And with the Wyvern at Beacon, it only made sense that he was either fighting some assassin sent by Salem or was making urgent preparations against the Wyvern. The problem was, the Wyvern wasn't something you fought on your own. To battle it, you needed to communicate with others and prepare plans and traps against it.
The most likely option was that Ozpin was battling for his life even now. And Salem wouldn't have sent an assassin unless she thought the assassin had some chance of success.
Glynda recollected herself. This was Ozpin. He probably was just busy fighting.
But if Ozpin was busy with his own problems, then what about the students?
The White Fang, the Grimm, and the rogue Atlas robots all supporting the Wyvern would be too much for her students. And with the flocks of Nevermore and Griffons everywhere, and especially with the hostile flagship at Beacon covering the Wyvern, Atlas's fleet couldn't move in to help the students.
Her poor students! They weren't ready for a foe like the Wyvern. Even seasoned Hunters had difficulty with the most powerful of Grimm and that was without all their fellow humans fighting alongside the Grimm.
"When is the next airship coming in from Beacon?" Glynda asked. "Wait, how did my students get to Beacon? The last I heard, the students were all on Amity Colosseum!"
"A large number of tournament fighters decided that they would choose to fight," the captain explained as he referred to the logs for his map. "The general decided to send them to defend Beacon in order to keep them out of the more dangerous fighting."
Glynda and Shirou both exhaled simultaneously.
That had been a good call, Glynda knew. Send the students to defend Beacon where they could handle the few Grimm that could make it up there, while freeing up all the professors to handle the problems in the city.
But right now, it was the wrong choice.
The Wyvern would release a flood of Grimm upon Beacon. And the rogue robots could prove a significant challenge to her weaker students like Jaune or Cardin.
Glynda knew that Ozpin had ordered her to the city. Vale needed its Huntresses and Huntsmen.
But she needed to be there, at Beacon! She needed to protect her students.
They stood no chance against a Wyvern and they would think they didn't have a choice but to fight it.
They would die! They needed to evacuate!
"How soon can we get there?" Shirou asked, frowning.
Glynda glanced aside to the man. She had almost forgotten about him in her worry about her students.
"Well, the next ship will be-" The captain started before he stopped and put one hand to his earpiece. "Yes, general. You're reading loud and clear."
He paused for a bit, receiving his orders before speaking again. "I have a Glynda Goodwitch here. She just arrived and I was briefing her up on the current situation."
Another pause as Glynda waited for James to communicate to his captain.
"Understood. I will convey your instructions." The captain removed his hand from the phone.
"What is it, captain?" Glynda asked, impatiently.
Like it or not, James was in charge of Vale's defenses at the moment. And she was a Huntress sworn to protect Vale.
"General Ironwood has ordered you to maintain the safe zone here and cooperate with the other huntsmen. Expand it if possible. We are the closest area where the air buses can land. The evacuation ships will come here and we need to make sure that they can land safely." The captain met her gaze with no fear in his eyes.
Glynda found herself torn.
Should she listen to the general's orders? Or should she ignore them and move to protect her students?
Discipline was important, she chastised herself. If her students didn't have anywhere to land, then they would die to the flying Grimm downing the airbuses.
"Understood," she nodded her acceptance before wheeling around.
She was part of a greater whole. She was Glynda Goodwitch, professor of Beacon, protector of the world, and a Huntress of Vale.
If she didn't do her part, the others would fail and all would be lost.
"Hey, are you okay with that?" Shirou asked from behind her. "What about the Wyvern?"
Glynda stopped, her cape fluttering as it settled against her back.
"If I don't ensure that the students can land, they will have to fly farther," she explained, not turning around but her hand was gripped a tad too tightly on the crop. "We have medical facilities here for the wounded. We are the closest location. If we aren't secure here, they will die. I have to trust Ironwood that the ships will come. Fortunately for us all, I do trust him."
"And as for the Wyvern," Glynda let out a huff of air. It really was for the best. She was low on Aura, the city was still locked in battle, and Atlas needed both their flagship and their robots back. A single strike, if that was all the energy Shirou had left to work with, also ran the risk of it missing, putting the mission in jeopardy. And all of that was assuming that there were no complications, something practically guaranteed to be false with both Beacon and Vale's current chaos. "If it stays at Beacon, we can try to kill it later after rescuing the students from Beacon. The advantage of such a plan is that we will have time to recover our strength before such an attack. Something that we will all desperately need."
Leaving her words behind like the toll of an evening bell, Glynda walked forward and out the door of the building.
Just in time to see an Atlas ship, James' flagship it looked like, crash onto a building some distance away and explode.
"At least he won't need to reclaim his ship," Glynda noted to the air after the sound of the explosion stopped ringing.
Then she walked forward to prepare for more fighting.
The Grimm would be coming. With defeated and wounded trainees, the Grimm would most certainly come.
But they would not survive to get even close to her students.
As Glynda Goodwitch left the building, Shirou sighed, glanced at the map and sighed.
He didn't like retreating from battles. It had never been his thing. He, and Archer before him, had been more likely to run to the battlefield instead of away from them.
But Glynda had raised some good points. Shirou barely had enough Od left to make and use a single high-ranking Noble Phantasm. If he had to fight his way into Beacon before facing the Wyvern, he would probably have to sacrifice his life in order to bring down the Wyvern.
And if he died, how would he protect Miyu? How could he find her and protect her if he was dead?
He couldn't. If he didn't have help, the battle against the Wyvern might be one he was better off not fighting right now. And if it wasn't leaving Beacon, he did have time to recover and prepare to fight it, only this time without the robots and White Fang on the Grimm's side. And with enough flying pairs of Kanshou and Bakuya, the number of smaller Grimm wouldn't matter as none would live to get close to him.
It looked like the right choice would be to not fight at Beacon yet.
"I'll go help with expanding the perimeter," Shirou said, pulling out Archer's bow and projecting a few dozen more arrows into his quiver. "Do you have a good sniping spot to start from?"
"What's your range?" the captain immediately asked.
"Hmm," Shirou hummed. How far could he shoot a normal arrow? Not a Noble Phantasm, just a plain average arrow you could find anywhere. Especially if anywhere happened to be Unlimited Blade Works. "On flat ground, I'm good for 400 meters. On buildings, a lot more than that but that depends on the wind and the height of the building…"
Shirou shrugged. Taller buildings gave him more flight time, which meant he could shoot further. His stronger arrows, his mystically enhanced arrows and Noble Phantasms, could ignore the effects of drag a lot better and could range a lot further.
Shirou wasn't quite up to Archer's range yet. But he was working up to it.
"Well, how about…" The officer began, adjusting the map to 3D and pointing out some good buildings to shoot from.
Shirou hoped he could get a good view of the city and the people. Maybe, if he was lucky, while he shot down Grimm, he could find Miyu.
But to tell the truth, Shirou hoped he didn't find Miyu here. She shouldn't have to live through something like this. Her life had already been hard enough.
But when had life ever been truly kind to anyone?
Okay, I just had to say, I had a bit too much fun making the lieutenant edit his words. I don't like swearing so you won't find much of it in my works.