Golden thorns chapter thirty-nine.
"RECON!? Seriously? Recon. That's so boring!"
"Calm down jo. You won't be saying that when we get out there." Coran tried desperately to stop her from shouting. She was starting to draw unwanted attention.
"But I was hoping to go on a Grimm hunt or something exciting. Not go digging around in some old cave."
The girls had arrived shortly after Ozpin had finished briefing Coran and Devlyn. Jo was looking a little worse for wear and she was not happy to hear what she thought was going to be a boring job. Marie, on the other hand was looking only a little drowsy, her hair only slightly less tidy than normal.
"It's not a cave. It's a mine. And before you ask: no it's not a Schnee dust mine. It's an iron mine that has probably supplied the steel for your weapons. Apparently, before it was abandoned, it was where Vale got most of its metal from."
"I'm gonna just go ahead and ask the obvious. Why was it abandoned?"
"Records show that they dug into a Grimm nest and had to bail. The company sees it as still potentially profitable so the executives want it back. Enough that they are trying to hire hunters to go down there and clear it out." answered Devlyn. Coran continued.
"The tunnels are too small to just go in there guns blazing, you'd get destroyed. So a couple of hunters are going in to check it out and see if it will require a whole team or whether a few Atlesian knights can deal with it. And guess what? We get to tag along."
"So who's this Huntress we're going to be making the coffee for?" said Jo, not sounding Convinced
"Don't know yet. I guess we'll find out when we get there. Have you guys got all your kit together?" Coran tried to bring the focus back to the present.
"Yes Mom" she turned away from him and hefted her pack, "if anyone needs me I'll be outside, sulking."
"Cool. We'll be out in a moment." Said Devlyn, rolling his golden eyes at her back. Marie spoke next.
"It is strange, is it not? That the professor chose to assign us to this particular mission. It appears that we are the only ones who have been so requested."
"Yeah I don't get it either. But who are we to argue with the omniscient Ozpin? Let's go cheer up Jo before she turns on the water works." Coran replied. The three of them made their way out into the bright morning sunlight to find Jo standing at the edge of a crowd of people. She saw them and waved them over. They joined the back of the crowd to discover a weary and downtrodden team CFVE. They looked pretty rough. It wasn't particularly heartening, if Coran was honest.
Eventually the crowd dispersed and SOUL made their way over to 'landing platform five' to meet up with their mysterious huntress.
Two exceedingly boring hours later and they were still waiting on the platform. The shuttle was fuelled up, their bags were stowed and the team was getting antsy. Devlyn was sitting cross-legged, reading a weapon magazine, anxiously flipping the pages, Jo was fidgeting and pacing the sky dock, groaning and growling in frustration. Coran was lying on the metal floor of the platform, eyes closed, trying to ignore his team mates and their irritating noises. Marie was sat on the edge of the platform, leaning back on her hands and looking out at the view.
Eventually it became too much for Coran. He stood up, went over to the cockpit and rapped on it with a single knuckle. The pilot, who had been asleep, started awake and spun round to look at him through the glass. The dark haired man saw who it was and rolled down the window.
"What's up kid? I was trying to catch up on sleep." He said in a gruff, grumpy baritone
"Yeah, I noticed. D'you have any idea when our friend is joining us?"
"Look kid. I'm not a PA, I'm a Pilot. I'm just here to fly you out of the city. Hey, is that who you're looking for?" he asked and Coran turned to see a very determined looking woman striding purposefully toward them.