Chapter 37
"It was you the whole time…I knew it." Blake stated in a rage.
"What do you mean?" Weiss asked as Adam stood behind the bar door.
"I knew I recognized the scent of the person piloting the Paladin that has been hunting us. I didn't want to believe that it was him, but of course…" Blake said.
"How have you been able to retain your sanity in the presence of the Alpha?" Clark asked.
"It's thanks to me that the Alpha has even been reborn. Years of research and gathering supplies have finally come to fruition. That was the entire reason I even came to power in the first place." Adam stated.
"What do you mean? You were voted in by the elder council! How have you been planning this before then?" Blake protested.
"I cannot believe you still think there is innocence in this world. The only way you move up in the world is by stepping on the bodies of those beneath you. I wasn't voted in…I threatened, blackmailed, and bribed my way to leadership. All for the purpose of reviving the Alpha." Adam stated.
"You obviously have not done enough research on the Alpha to know what you're doing. He isn't the 'scratch my back and I'll scratch yours' type." Clark said.
"He is intelligent. That's the only thing I needed to know. If he can be reasoned with, then I'm sure he would be able to see a good deal." Adam sighed.
"And everyone else?" Yang interrupted.
"What do you mean?" Adam asked as Blake shot her head to Yang. Blake looked noticeably relieved for a moment.
"The rest of the faunus! You would just let him kill thousands, and eventually, millions of faunus?" Yang asked.
"Sacrifices have to be made. Besides, as you saw while evading the turrets, not all of the faunus have had their minds altered. Only the…expendable ones will be taken advantage of." Adam said with a smile.
"The expendable?! They came to you in hopes of creating a better world for themselves!" Yang yelled in anger, her eyes turning a dark red.
"Just like Blake, you're still so innocent? Interesting." Adam said.
"No. I believe innocence still exists in the world…but trust me when I say that I am the farthest from innocent. And if you don't believe me, just let me out of these chains and I'll show you exactly what I mean, bitch." Yang yelled.
"As tempting as that is, the Alpha seems very hesitant about releasing you all, for some reason. It doesn't really matter to me…besides, I am quite busy preparing our army to attack." Adam said with a smile.
"Not much of an army with you killing off all your people!" Yang stated in annoyance.
"True, but the Alpha has rectified that." Adam said as he looked into one of the dark corners of the room. A part of the wall adjusted itself before slowly moving across the floor revealing an opening. A growling echoed throughout the room as a Beowolf slowly stepped out of the shadows and made its way to the girls and Clark. It sniffed each of the girls, stopping at the still unconscious Ruby. The Beowolf took its time examining the young leader bearing its sharp teeth close to her neck.
"STOP IT YOU SON OF BITCH!" Yang yelled as she pulled at her arms, yanking the chains as hard as she could. The walls began to slightly crack at the ruckus she was making, but in no way making a significant difference.
"Enough. Please stop your tantrum." Adam said which caused the Beowolf to look back at him. It slowly made its way back to the hole it came from, allowing it to close completely.
"The Alpha has given you the ability to control Grimm as well? You're serious when you're talking about having an army." Clark stated.
"I would never joke about something so important. Just know that any kind of significant motion, or at least any kind of motion beyond where you currently are, will trigger the door to open allowing Grimm into the room. Put simply, don't fucking move." Adam said before making his way out of the hallway. "When I return, all will finally be right with the world." He finished as he closed the door behind him.
Yang lifted her head, revealing the tears that were running down her cheeks from her blood-red eyes, after seeing her sister was safe. "They threatened Ruby…He's fucking dead. I swear to Remnant…I will make him suffer." Yang mumbled through her sniffles.
"Don't worry, Yang. We'll all have our fair shot at him." Weiss said.
"What's the plan?" Blake asked, changing the subject.
"Well, as far as I know, Klein is still waiting outside for us. If we can make it out there, then we'll be able to contact everyone else and warn them." Weiss stated.
"We'll need our weapons before we leave." Yang said monotonously.
"How are we going to find them?" Blake asked.
"I know that Ruby has tracking device embedded in Crescent Rose. We find her weapon and we'll probably find ours, too." Yang explained.
"Only if we can. If their too far away, we might just have to leave without them. I honestly don't see us being able to make it back to the cargo hold in our current shape." Weiss stated.
"Yeah…I know." Yang said.
"Well. We might as well get down to business then." Clark said his arms seemed to phase through the cuffs around his wrists with one swift movement.
"What the hell?!" Yang gasped, causing both Weiss and Blake to look in her direction. Clark was standing over her, holding her forearms; with yet another swift movement, hell pulled her arms free from the braces around her wrists which looked to simply phase through them once again.
"Don't move." Clark said as he examined the room they were in. He pointed toward the area where the Beowolf came from and then pointed to the single motion sensor on the corner ceiling of the room. "I'll be right back." He stated before seeming to disappear again.
"What are the chances of him coming back?" Weiss asked sarcastically.
"That's probably why he released, Yang. There would have been no reason for him to do that if he intended on just leaving us here." Blake said. They each heard a loud cracking noise from where Clark had been chained up. Upon looking in that direction they were met with the sight of five Beowolfs piled in the corner with Clark standing next to them holding one by the neck, which he had just broken. He proceeded to chain up one of the Beowolfs where he had been held at.
"I get it." Blake said.
"Good. But still, don't move until I say so." Clark stated as he grabbed a second Beowolf and appeared next to Weiss. He grabbed both of her arms and freed them in much the same way as his own and Yang's, replacing her with the Beowolf. He proceeded to do the same for Ruby, Blake, and Yang, the last of which had been waiting patiently since she had already been freed.
"What about Ruby?" Yang asked.
"Let me try something." Weiss said as she placed her hand in the middle of Ruby's chest. A very small yellow glyph appeared before Ruby's body seemed to slightly tense up. Her eyes shot open as she began to breathe rather deeply. "Calm down, Ruby." Weiss said calmly as she hugged the young leader.
"What happened? Were we under mind control?" Ruby asked.
"Yes. But, we're all better now. We're about to get out of here, but we need to get our weapons first. Yang said you have a tracking device in Crescent Rose, correct?" Weiss explained.
"Yeah…" Ruby said as she pulled her scroll out. "They're moving really fast…they must be on board some kind of aircraft." She stated.
"Are you fucking serious?!" Yang asked in annoyance.
"Just a sec…" Ruby said as she began to rewind the movements of the tracking device. "They were taken from us after we found the Omni-dust, and given to someone who never put them away. This person has kept our weapons with them the whole…" Ruby trailed off.
"What is it?" Blake asked.
"Our weapons were right of this room not too long ago." Ruby said in confusion.
"Adam!" Blake said in rage.
"He's here?!" Ruby asked in surprise.
"Yeah. And he was literally HERE taunting us not too long ago." Yang said.
"We'll have to get your weapons back some other time. There is no way we're going to be in any shape to get them now and we still have to warn everyone about what's coming." Clark stated.
"Fine. How are we getting out?" Yang asked.
"We're going to bust a hole through the wall, right?" Weiss asked Clark.
"That was the plan, but with the motion sensor there, we would probably get overrun very soon. That's why I put the Beowolfs in our places…I will get us out of the room and we'll have to find an easily defendable place to start chipping away at the wall." Clark explained.
"Okay." Yang said as she placed her hand on Blake's shoulder. "C'mon guys, I'm ready to get the hell out of here." Yang stated.
"I agree." Blake said as she took hold of Ruby's cloak. Ruby followed up by placing her hand on Weiss back. Clark extended his hand allowing Weiss to grab hold, and, before they could say another word, they were standing outside of the jail cell. Clark looked back inside to see if they had triggered the motion sensor, but fortunately, the hidden door remained closed.
"So, are we going to blast a hole in one of the other cells?" Yang asked.
"No, they surely bound to have motion sensors as well. We need to find a room where Beowolfs won't be pouring in along with White Fang. It's not like they won't be able to hear us going through the wall…and without our weapons, it's going to take a bit to get all the way through." Blake stated.
"Exactly, and what we need is a room with only one entrance so we can bottleneck the soldiers that will be coming in." Clark said as he began to jog down the hallway. He reached the end of the hall only to disappear and quickly reappear in the same spot. "There's no one on the other side, so let's hurry." He stated.
"Using your semblance doesn't seem to take quite as much of a toll on you anymore. What's up?" Yang asked as they all caught up to him at the end of the hall. He simply pulled a small vial out of his pocket which was filled half way with Omni-dust.
"Let's hurry." Clark said as she placed the vial back into his pocket before opening the door. They each made their way into the hall, which looked as though it was slowly crumbling to pieces. As they ran down the hall, they began to notice a few familiar places up until they passed one hall which looked as though a bomb had decimated it.
"Well, I know where we are now." Yang said as she saw the familiar sandbags and destroyed walls. "I don't suppose you have any more of Lion's jackets to throw do you?" she asked sarcastically.
"Unfortunately not." Clark said as he opened one of the doors further down the hall and examined the room. "This should work…what do you think?" He asked Ruby. The young leader looked inside the room, which was a reasonable size…not to cramped, but also not too large.
"The size of the room is fine…and we can use those desks of there as cover. We can probably grab some of the scattered sandbags from back down the hall to help reinforce it. The only way in is this door, but there are also to air ducts." Ruby stated as she examined the room.
"I got that." Yang said as she walked into the room holding a grenade in each hand.
"Where in the world did you get those?" Weiss asked.
"From a couple of the corpses back there. Well…a piece of the corpse, I guess." Yang responded.
"Well, before we start making that much noise, let's go ahead and get our cover set up." Blake stated as she began to push the two desks into a defensive position against each side of the wall leaving about a three-foot space in the middle of the room to walk through.
"Awesome, perfect fit." Ruby exclaimed as she ran outside with her team to begin lugging the sandbags into the room. One after another, they were stacking the sandbags up until they had no more viable ones left.
"I think that's all of the sandbags we can get. The rest are torn to shreds." Weiss said.
"Take these, also." Blake said as she brought in a two large duffle bags.
"Where did you get these?" Yang asked as she opened the bag and pulled out an anti-matter energy rifle.
"It was sitting further down the hall from where the explosion took place. The person carrying it was too far from the explosion but the falling debris killed him." Blake explained.
"This should work quite well." Clark said as he pulled one of the rifles out for himself, followed by both Yang and Ruby.
"Aren't you going to take one, Weiss?" Ruby asked.
"I'll be the one breaking through the wall." Weiss stated.
"Oh yeah! I forgot about that." Ruby giggled. "Hey, where'd Clark go?" she asked.
"I'm here…" Clark said as he ran back into the room holding three more vials of Omni-dust. "These are for you." She said as he handed them to Weiss.
"Wait, should we go and get more?" Yang asked.
"That was all that was left; they were just lying on the ground. They're serious about this invasion." Clark stated as he made his way behind the desks and sandbags. "Have we separated the ammo from the second back between the four of us?" he asked Ruby, Yang, and Blake.
"We're all set over here." Blake said as she aimed her rifle toward the door, to which Clark and Ruby followed suit.
"You guys ready?" Yang asked.
"I suppose. Just keep me covered." Weiss said as she summoned a large red glyph which encompassed a large portion of the wall.
"Don't worry, Ice Queen…we've got you." Yang said calmly as she pulled the pin from each of the explosives before throwing them into the air ducts. They seemed to travel for quite a while, the clanking of metal getting slightly more distant before the expected explosion rang throughout the room. The ducts could be heard as they shattered to pieces within the walls. Without hesitation, Weiss began to burn her way through the wall at a slow pace.
"Would you happen to know how much rock she's going to have to go through?" Blake asked as an alarm began to ring throughout the facility.
"A lot." Clark said sarcastically.
"Real helpful, bro…" Yang said as she got into cover next to Blake and aimed her rifle toward the door.
"They're coming…" Blake said as he ears began to twitch.
"How many?" Clark asked.
"A lot." Blake said as she fired a shot from her rifle the moment a single soldier ran into the room, who obviously was not expecting any resistance. Blake looked back at Weiss and saw that she was only about one inch of the way into the wall.
"We're going to be here for quite a while aren't we?" Blake sighed.
"Yeah. Settle in and get comfortable. The last thing you need is your leg falling asleep now." Yang said sarcastically. Almost in an instant, hundreds of footsteps could be heard echoing through the halls. "Damn…I don't you to tell me if anyone's coming now. Even I can hear that." She stated.
More and more White Fang began to arrive, but each time they stuck their heads out to examine the room, they were immediately shot down. "Blake, let us know if you hear any paladins coming." Ruby said as two large explosions destroyed the upper half of the wall next to the door. As the rubble fell, the White Fang began to take position behind the wreckage.
"Make-shift cover…that sucks." Yang said as she, Ruby, Blake, and Clark began to fire upon the enemy. Weiss looked back to see what had transpired before she ducked down behind the cover next to Yang, still holding her glyph against the wall.
"Ugh, this got significantly more difficult." Weiss complained as she continued to concentrate on the glyph as bullets fired all around her.
"Sorry, Ice Queen. But I don't think they want us to leave." Yang said.
"Are you enjoying this?" Weiss asked.
"Yeah. After everything we've been, though, there's nothing like a good old-fashioned shoot out to calm you down." Yang responded before noticing one of the White Fang pull out a rocket launcher and fire it at them. "Get down!" She yelled as she and Blake ducked behind cover as the fire engulfed the air around them.
Blake sighed as she looked back at the wall once again only to see at most two inches of progress. She closed her eyes in annoyance before bringing her body out of cover and continuing their war.