Chapter 7: The Heist
Blake sat on the side of a skyscraper, looking towards the ground. A vast city extended off into the distance in all directions, behind her a cloudy gray sky. The world around her began to collapse, chunks of buildings breaking off and falling as the ground collapsed, the sky behind her following suit. She began falling into the void that was now below her, the building on which she sat collapsing with the rest of the world. As she fell into the void, everything froze. The world distorted around her before she found her amidst a war torn plain. Yang's body lay in her arms, her own hands stained with blood. Everything turned gray, Yang's eyes opening into a blood red lifeless stare. "You couldn't save us, Blake." the body of Yang said, before standing up and turning into a shadow. It hissed out another line, as the bodies of her friends were revealed strewn across the plain. "You were too… WEAK!"
Blake tossed and turned in her hospital bed, whimpering. She shot upright with a scream, tears streaming down her face. Realising she was back in the real world, she slowed her breath down before crying into her hands.
Operating the primary cargo train for the Schnee Dust Company wasn't such a bad job. Under Weiss Schnee's leadership, many of the company's less-than-fair policies had vanished. Working conditions were much better, for both humans and faunus, and the lines were a lot safer with the White Fang in ruins. So, on this fair morning, this particular moose faunus on this particular cargo train was simply enjoying the sunrise. He was, however, completely oblivious to the aircraft keeping pace just behind the engine of the train, as well as the men exiting the aircraft and planting explosives on the connection between the engine and the rest of the train.
It wasn't until he heard a loud bang that he decided to take a look behind his little cabin in the engine. He poked his head out the window, looking back to find the engine of the train slowly gaining distance on the rest, as well as an orange haired man in a black suit and black sunglasses pointing a black pistol at his head from atop the leading car. Suffice to say, he wasn't able to look much longer.
Roman admired his improving marksmanship as the engine of the train continued off into the distance. He turned around and observed the dozen men he had brought with him as they quite professionally checked each car and eliminated any guards that may have been inside. Aside from the fact that the man whom he worked for was obviously insane, Roman felt that this gig was far better than the one he had previously where he worked under Cinder.
"Alright, let's start getting these cars unloaded. I want every container packed full before noon, so you better get your asses to it!" Roman shouted as the cars slowed to a stop, putting his hat he had been holding in his left hand back on his head and lighting up a cigar. He pulled out a radio communicator, speaking into it. "Train is stopped, engine is en route to fuckingshitupsville on autopilot, ready to transfer the cargo." a fleet of Bullheads carrying cargo containers flying up over the nearby hill shortly after. "What a nice sunrise." Roman said, taking a puff off of his cigar.
"Blake, calm down, I'm right here." Yang said, concerned at the bawling faunus girl whom she held in her arms. "What's wrong? What happened?"
Blake choked back a sob, before taking a few deep breaths and speaking. "I… I had another nightmare. The world was collapsing, then there was this war zone, and you were dead and so was everyone else and I couldn't protect you and you turned into a shadow and said I was weak and-" Blake started sobbing into Yang's shoulder again, holding her partner tighter than she already was.
"Blake, I'm here. Everyone is alive and well, you don't have to worry." Yang wiped the tears away from Blake's eyes. "What happened in your dream would never happen in reality. You're not weak. You're one of the strongest people I have met, and I'd never let something like that happen to you, to us."
"Thanks, Yang." Blake said with a sniffle, wiping the tears from her eyes.
"Don't thank me, you're my kitten, it's my job to protect you." Yang said, giving Blake a light punch to the shoulder. "The doctors said you're free to leave whenever you want since your wounds finally healed. Let's get you back to the hotel and get you washed up, we need to meet Ruby and Weiss for lunch to discuss what we're gonna do about Mr. God Complex and company."
Blake nodded, allowing Yang to help her up. After returning to the hotel and getting freshened up (as well as quite a bit more…), Blake and Yang met Ruby and Weiss outside of the hotel.
"You two took your sweet time." Weiss scolded as the pair approached. "We're supposed to meet Drake and Ikari at the restaurant in 20 minutes!"
"They're joining us too?" Blake asked, in a significantly better mood than before.
"Yeah," Ruby spoke up, "they wanted to discuss the data they were able to get from the fight so we can try to figure out a way to fight this guy."
The team of huntresses quickly made their way to the same restaurant they had visited just two days prior. As they entered, they quickly spotted Drake and Ikari, seated at a table with the faunus man that had accompanied General Ironwood to the hospital.
As the four approached, the faunus man stood. "I don't believe I introduced myself the other day at the hospital. I am Commander Lupa Silbermond, head of the Atlesian Intelligence Committee. I serve mostly as General Ironwood's eyes and ears throughout Remnant." he said, bowing respectfully to the four girls, before addressing Weiss directly. "Always a pleasure, Ms. Schnee. I'm afraid I have some… unpleasant news regarding one of your company's cargo trains. Please, sit." he gestured to the four empty seats at the table before calling a waitress over to take the group's orders and handing the waitress a black lien card.
"Before we begin discussing the obvious topic," Lupa started, "I'd like to let you all know that a Schnee Dust Company freight train inbound to Vale was robbed today. The engine of the train was detached from the cargo, and the conductor shot dead, causing it to derail and explode a couple of miles outside the city. A search party was sent out after this happened, but when they found the rest of the train, over three quarters of the cargo had been taken and all of the guards killed. The remaining cargo had been destroyed. We believe the group responsible was the same group led by the man you fought the other day, though there's no way to be sure as they left no evidence that we could trace back to them."
Weiss clenched her fists in anger before speaking up. "You're sure there were no survivors?" to which the faunus intelligence officer nodded.
"As much as I would like to say that we are investigating the matter," Lupa continued, "there really isn't anything there to investigate. It appears to have been a very efficiently planned and professionally executed heist, and we really don't have any leads to work with. On the bright side, due to the fact that the Intelligence Committee's two top agents were present to fight the man known as Kelas Sekarian, we were able to gain a good amount of information about his abilities. Drake, if you would…"
"Of course, sir." Drake started. "You may already know that there has been extensive research into how to effectively measure someone's aura. Since aura is largely based off of the individual to whom it belongs, finding the best way to measure it has proved challenging. In recent years, we have been able to develop a device that effectively measures the strength of a person's aura, a device which I had on me during the battle the other day. The readings we were able to get off of it were rather strange. Kelas' energy differs from our aura in many key aspects, but some elements of it are pretty much the same, which allowed us to get some information on his energy patterns during the fight."
Drake took a moment to let this sink in before continuing. "Throughout most of the fight, Kelas' energy remained around the upper limits of where we would consider possible for aura, registering only slightly stronger than the most powerful readings we have taken from the strongest Hunters. However, when Ruby and I entered the fight, his energy entered a slight upward curve. When I activated the full strength of my semblance to allow Yang an opening to attack, his energy spiked, presumably to allow him to shake off the assault. Now, the disturbing part is that immediately afterward, as he prepared his counterattack, his energy spiked far beyond the range that the device could pick up, before dropping again and leveling off at the uppermost area of the detectable range."
Ruby was the one to speak up first. "Uhhh, what does that mean?"
Drake took a second to form a response. "You know how when you turn on a water faucet, a bit more than usual bursts out before the flow evens off?"
Ruby looked down in thought for a moment before her eyes widened in realisation. "You mean he was holding back his full power, and then at the end he let his power loose for the final attack?"
Drake nodded. "Judging by how great the spike was, after we extrapolated the data of course, the limiter he released wasn't the only one he had."
"So how are we supposed to fight him?" Yang asked, clearly concerned by this news.
"We throw everything we have at him right away, before he has the chance to bring out more of his power." Ikari was the one to speak up this time. "If we hit him with everything before he has a chance to do anything, we can bring him down without him being able to do anything."
"It is for that reason that I am forming a task force meant to combat this new threat." Lupa spoke up again. "I have requested that Professor Ozpin transfer you, Team RWBY, as well as Team JNPR under my command until the situation is resolved. The more people we have focused on this, the better our chances of success, and the leader of JNPR, Jaune Arc, is known to have one of the strongest auras of any Hunter currently available for field work."
"Sweet, we get to see Team JNPR again!" Ruby cheered as the group's food arrived.
Cinder looked out the office window, the warehouse below now bustling with the activity of their employees moving their newly requisition dust supply about the warehouse floor. She turned around as Roman came through the office door, Neo getting up from her spot on the couch to greet him.
"Looks like you've finally done something with your life, Roman." Cinder mocked.
"Yeah, it's a lot easier to work when I'm not expected to blindly follow seemingly pointless orders." Roman shot back.
"I don't need to explain myself to you. Your job was simply to follow orders, which you did not do very well." Cinder responded, her voice dripping with disdain.
"Why don't you go back to whatever fiery pit to Hell you crawled out of?" Roman asked in the most sincere tone he could muster, taking a seat on the couch next to Neo.
"Because I don't have much of a choice what I do as long as we work for that madman." she said, obviously referring to Kelas.
"You say that as if you're any less crazy." Roman said, glaring at the dark haired woman.
"Did I forget to mention at some point that I have the ability to hear your conversations from the far corner of the warehouse?" Kelas said, walking through the office door and interrupting the conversation the two were having. This earned an irritated growl from Cinder. "Now, as for handling our recent acquisition, I think that keeping 20% of what we were able to take should suffice to supply our own operation, allowing us to sell the other 80% on the black market for a profit."
"Sounds about right." Roman piped in. "Maybe we can get me a halfway decent weapon while where at it. I heard that Parson Ballistic Technologies caters to the criminal underground, and lemme tell ya, their customs are something to behold."
"Ordering an improved arsenal would be wise." Kelas responded. "Feel free to order yourself whatever weapon you desire with the requisitions cut when we order our armory."
"So, they went after the Schnee freight after all." Greene said, sipping from his glass of wine while enjoying his office view of Atlas.
"If I were to take a guess, it would probably be in order to allow business to be conducted between us and their operation." the gray haired scientist suggested. "Targeting the business not involved in the black market in order to conduct transactions with the business that is seems like a sensible plan."
"True, and the hit to the Schnee Dust Company's stocks would make our partnership proposal a much more tempting offer." mused the young businessman. "Maybe we could even pull off a takeover."
"That would be quite advantageous to both the business and our… secret operation." the scientist agreed, adjusting his glasses. "Quite advantageous indeed."