(So, new chapter, hopefully a nice one. I actually planned to get even farther with this one, however time constraints are a thing, so here we are. Hopefully it'll provide you great entertainment regardless, please enjoy!)
Vale burned. Battle raged. Blood spilled. And chaos reigned. Four armies fought in a free-for-all brawl across the city and civilian casualties were high as Grimm, White Fang, and the damn Atlas robots alike butchered them on sight. Qrow would have liked to say that he felt shocked, or appalled, or horrified. Some appropriate negative emotion that a rational person who'd had something approaching a normal life was supposed to feel in situations like this. But the truth was that this reminded him so much of Mountain Glenn, and so many less famous but equally tragic villages beyond the watch of the Kingdoms, that all he really felt was a kind of bitter resignation. Had he really become that jaded? … Well, he didn't exactly have the time to waste psychoanalyzing himself to answer that question. He had a job to do.
SCHLINK!
The veteran huntsman was many things. A drunkard, an admittedly cool uncle, unruly, ill-mannered, a bit of a degenerate, and all kinds of indecent. But he was also damn good at his job, as was evidenced by his fully extended scythe making a clean slash through Atlas's oh-so-impressive military tech, severing the right armored fist of the Paladin in front of him and sending it crashing down onto the street. The stone cracked as the now useless hunk of metal struck it, white-painted Atlas mech stumbling back a few clanking steps as it's severed stump of an arm 'sparked'. The left arm of the Paladin 'shifted' back into gun form, and turned to point down towards Qrow. But even as it fired a-
BLAST!
Of blue energy, breaking the street and leaving a small crater where it had hit, Qrow was already in the air, twirling in a single motion with his scythe and-
SCHLINK!
The gun-arm fell, hitting the street much as its twin had, Qrow spinning into his second loop before the gun had even finished its fall and turning his scythe blade-backwards to SLAM the back-head of his scythe into the Paladin', denting in the torso as the strike sent it sprawling onto its back, breaking the ground where the heavy metal juggernaut lay. Qrow's arch ended quickly with his feet planted onto the torso of the prone Paladin, and a quick spin of his scythe with his right hand made a-
SHINK!
As the blade slashed into the Paladin's torso and cut it open in one clean spin. The pure effortlessness of Qrow's attacks against the Paladin would, of course, have had Atlesian engineers tearing their hair out, and Academy students standing slack-jawed. A fact that Qrow didn't allow himself to appreciate as he reached to the gash in the torso with his left hand, and with a small grunt WRENCHED the rest of the metal open, tearing it wide so that he could see inside.
The pilot was an Atlas soldier, wearing the standard armor with yellow edging and tinting. He was laying back in the pilot-seat, surrounded by green glowing screens, with what looked like wires jutting out of the chair, and digging in under his skin at the neck and face. His flesh looked red and charred in the same spots, and Qrow immediately smelt the sick aroma of cooked human meat, mixed in with hints of melted metal, topped off with a feeling of electrical energy making the hairs along the length of his left arm stand up. Qrow grimaced at the sight and smell, suspicions about the unfortunate fate of the Paladin pilot confirmed, before he felt said Paladin shift beneath him.
Qrow leapt back and off of the Paladin's torso as the machine's legs moved underneath it to right itself, the metal hulk getting up, electrocuted pilot still slumped over inside as the machine continued to act independently of any human instruction. Qrow, with narrowed eyes, took only a moment to curse the stupidity of making a Mech designed to be piloted by a human able to function without a human pilot, before widening his feet slightly, lowering his body, and bringing the scythe back around his right side, right hand up on the shaft and left hand lower. As the Paladin raised its gun arm, again pointing towards Qrow, he 'vanished' in a BURST of wind and-
SCHLINK, SCHINK, SHINK, SCHLINK!
Reappeared, back where he'd vanished from, straightening up and moving his left hand to sweep through his hair, then bringing it down to his waist and smirking a bit… before the Paladin in front of him made a pathetic-
'CREAK' 'Ftzftz'
Sound. And collapsed. Sliced into clean little pieces, falling into a heap of junk on the street, body of the dead pilot unfortunately included in that which did make it a little bit… messy. Qrow allowed his smirk to widen as he saw sparks rising from the now devastated Paladin, ignoring the part where there was a fleshling involved. After all, wrecking Ironwood's toys always did bring him a special kind of satisfaction. A catharsis really. And judging by the metallic thudding noise that was reaching his ears, he was going to get another opportunity to indulge in said catharsis.
Qrow turned his head at the sound of another Paladin, sun glinting off its fancy white metal body as it barreled down towards him from a far street, on its way to the square he was now occupying. With a 'grunt' and a small sigh, Qrow turned, bringing his scythe down at his right, moving his left hand to grip the handle as he lowered his body and-
OORRRRUUUUUU!
CRASH!
A ghostly trumpeting cry came as a giant white Goliath, with eerily glowing cyan lines where it's red markings would typically be, appeared out of nowhere and SMASHED straight into the Paladin, trampling over the metal mech and wrecking it utterly, pounding the Atlas tech into scrap beneath its mighty feet. But even as it finished its charge it began to dissipate, seeming to disintegrate into tiny fragments, reminiscent of snowflakes, disappearing into thin air and leaving nothing behind but a destroyed heap of metal to show it was ever there.
Qrow let his brows raise a bit, honestly a little surprised, not by what had happened so much as by who he knew had to be responsible. He was pretty sure that she'd gone out of town. But then he smirked, deciding that he didn't actually care why she was here, as he straightened up, and turned his head over towards the left to see a very aggravated Winter Schnee standing on a nearby rooftop. Prim clothing, heeled boots, and hair as immaculate as her combat form. Perfect, beautiful… and pretty damn scary when she wanted to be. The only woman in Remnant that Qrow enjoyed pissing off more than Glynda.
Looking at Qrow with an utterly disapproving glare, Winter 'leapt' off of the roof as calm and proper as could be, landing a few feet away from him and regally striding forward, heels clacking against the street, and grip tight around her rapier even as her free hand remained clenched in a fist. Qrow couldn't help but let the smirk widen on his face as he turned to face her fully, his scythe coming up to rest on his right shoulder, his left hand on his hip as he looked to the young woman.
"Hey there Ice Queen. You, ah, do realize you just destroyed Atlas military property, don'tcha?" Asked Qrow, amusement leaking from his voice. Winter's eyes narrowed and her expression moved from her more constant disapproval to an actual scowl.
"Be silent Qrow! I do not have time for your idiocy!" She berated, loudly, as she practically stomped the last couple of feet up to the older Huntsman.
"Where is General Ironwood!? Where are Vale's soldiers!?" She almost shouted, and then her eyes narrowed a bit more, as a softer tone moved in to temper the rage.
"And where is my sister?" At that, Qrow's eyes and mouth fell into their more normal affair, a mixture of tiredness mixed with cynicism, as he sighed and shook his head.
"Ironwood's disappeared." He spoke bluntly, that one statement causing Winter to widen her eyes in alarm as Qrow turned away and looked up to the sky, watching the Airships, Gunships, and Bullheads, engage both each other and the Grimm, Nevermores and Griffins swarming in mass.
"Last message we got from him was that he was trying to get enough soldiers together to get to the Vale Council Chambers, evacuate the Council before the White Fang gutted them. After that, nothing. Calling him gets a 'Scroll Deactivated' message. Probably been destroyed." Muttered Qrow, letting his scythe's end hit the ground, shaft leaning against his right shoulder, as his left hand moved behind him and under his cape to grab his flask.
"Then we need to get to the Council Chambers! We need to sear-" Started Winter, approaching a few steps towards Qrow before he interrupted with-
"I've been there!" He snapped, quickly and far more harshly than was needed, actually causing Winter to take a step back and widen her eyes slightly in surprise. Whether at Qrow's tone or the idea that he could be productive was something even her own mind wasn't certain of. Qrow looked over his left shoulder to Winter for a moment with an agitated glance, as though to drive the point home, before looking forward and down, and bringing his flask up in front of him, right hand moving to unscrew the cap as he let out another sigh, trying to dispel SOME of his aggravation.
"It's gone. Blown up. Barely one stone left on top of another." Spoke Qrow, before shaking his head with a humorless chuckle.
"Guess the Fang really hated that place." He stated simply, before moving the flask up to his lips and taking a swig, as Winter narrowed her eyes, leveling a more thoughtful glare towards Qrow.
"What about the V.C.G.?"
"'Agh' Heh, what do you think?" Asked Qrow as he lowered the flask, and wiped his mouth with the back of his left arm.
"The City Guard was a joke even before you Atlas goons took over everything in Vale. Policing, garrison duty, even the defense of the Council Chambers. Everything. The idiots were probably napping, enjoying their unofficial vacation when YOUR machines went crazy and came in to shoot them in their beds! As for the ones who survived that? Well, the White Fang just spent a ton of their stolen Dust blowing up Vale. Think they missed the Guard Stations on the way in?" Qrow continued bitterly, moving his cap back to the flask and screwing it back on, probably with a little more force than was strictly necessary.
As for Winter, her expression had become less and less aggressive and more and more impassive as Qrow continued to explain the situation. Carefully neutral. Carefully cold. To someone who didn't know her it would look as though she was processing all of this information calmly and efficiently while disregarding her own feelings on the situation, calmly sorting her emotions away until they were needed.
To someone who knew her, and damn did Qrow know her inside and out, it was fairly obvious that she was on the verge of breaking down, freaking out, flying into a berserker rage, and ripping the whole plaza apart. Because for all her discipline, for all her skill, for all her practiced careful posturing and dedicated formal behavior, she was one of the most emotionally unstable, angry, and insecure women that he'd ever met. The only one he knew with more issues was his sister, and SHE outstripped all her competition by several miles, Winter coming in second to that still made her pretty fucked up. Having a heartless bastard for a father would do that to someone he supposed. Qrow pretended that he couldn't see it, see it in Winter's face, reflected as it was in the polished glass of an unshattered store window opposite of him down the plaza, pretended that he couldn't see just how close she was to losing her precious form and just going crazy. And he even pretended that he couldn't see the next question coming, the one that mattered to her more than any other, forming on her lips and dancing out as inevitably as the Grimm Reaper's visit.
"… And my sister?" She asked, her voice quieter than before, carefully measured, carefully neutral. But even she couldn't keep the hint of a tremor out of it.
Qrow stood quiet for a moment, before looking over his shoulder back to Winter, his expression as serious as it ever got.
"After my niece's 'incident' in the tournament her team got together in their dorm at Beacon to keep her company. Last I checked, they were still there… And since then, the White Fang has attacked the academy, along with the Grimm and your crazy robots." He spoke, and pretended that he didn't notice Winter tightening her grip around her rapier.
"They're probably in the middle of a battle for the school. Fighting the Fang, the Grimm, and your trashy robots all. Ozpin'll be busy leading the defense… he knows what's at stake more than anyone alive." Spoke Qrow simply, watching Winter as she lowered her eyes from him to the ground, subjecting the stone at her feet to a harsh glare, even as her grip tightened hard enough to make her sword tremble in her hand, and she gritted her teeth together, hard. Fighting with every ounce of her being to keep the rage in check and not just rush off to Beacon and tear through every single thing that dared try to hurt her little sister.
"… If you went to her, no one would blame you." Spoke Qrow, his voice a little softer for a moment.
"Least of all Jimmy… he'd understand." Continued the veteran Hunter, as Winter just glared at the ground for a moment, war raging in her mind just as violently as it raged out in the city around them.
"… Ozpin. Do you trust him?" Asked Winter simply, her voice embracing a measured calm, forced over the deeper anger.
"With my life. And more importantly, with my nieces lives." Stated Qrow with conviction. Winter took a deep breath in, and let out a shuddering sigh… before straightening up and rolling her shoulders back, loosening her grip on her sword just enough to get it to stop trembling in her hand. And when she looked to Qrow again, it was with a determined glare, hard and full of conviction.
"My sister can look after herself. That is not an ability that the citizens of Vale have. Someone needs to organize our surviving forces into a coherent defense, and if the Council, the Guard, Beacon's Headmaster, and… and the General are incapacitated as you say, then we are next down on the chain of command."
That got a raised eyebrow from Qrow, before Winter explained.
"As an S-Class Elite in the Special Operations Unit I outrank all other officers present in Vale. And you are a senior Hunter who has acquired a… not entirely undeserved reputation. Between the two of us we can rally Atlas, Vale, and Hunter groups in the city to establish safe-zones for the civilian population." She spoke, falling back onto her discipline and formality as Qrow smirked a bit, taking a moment to enjoy the grudging respect she'd given him.
"Well then, guess we should start running towards the biggest and loudest battles in the city until we get enough people together to make a difference." Spoke Qrow simply, as the sound of mechanical footsteps reached his and Winter's ears, both looking up and to their lefts down a far street, to see a line of Atlesian Knights, marching forward with guns raised, and a Paladin lumbering along behind them, gun-arms at the ready.
"And cut up everything that gets in our way while we're at it." Continued Qrow, smirking just a bit at that, turning to face these new opponents as Winter moved to stand at his left, calmly lifting her rapier with a SWISH to point down towards the approaching opponents. Still smirking, Qrow brought his flask up again, uncapped it, and moved it over to his left in front of Winter, making her blink in surprise, then look to him with her eyes still narrowed, and her right brow arched, as he met her eyes with his own easy gaze.
"Ready to vandalize a few more of your boss's toys Ice Queen?" he asked with a cocky smirk to his mouth. Winter let out a low growl as some of her more typical annoyance with Qrow resurfaced… and then SNATCHED the flask out of his hand with her left, brought it to her lips, took a deep SWIGG, and then wrenched it down from her lips, wiping her mouth with a very unladylike movement of her left arm, before practically shoving the flask back into Qrow's chest.
"Just shut up and fight you aged degenerate!" She snapped out, finishing with another 'growl' as Qrow chuckled lightly, this one with some actual humor in it, as he took, recapped, and stowed his flask, moved his hands around to grip his scythe and then-
FWOOSH!
FWOOSH!
-… And then a pair of top-tier Hunters moving faster than the eye could track proceeded to turn expensive state of the art Atlas equipment into scrap. All the while chaos reigned around the city, and a battle raged in the skies overhead…
A battle that the Roman occupied airship had yet to join, due in no small part to a very small criminal who appeared to have gotten a bit… clingy.
Now it wasn't that Roman didn't like hugging Neo. He wasn't a 'hugger' per se, but Neo's smaller body pressed up against his never failed to feel comfortable, plus her hair smelled like ice-cream, and hey, sometimes he did like a bit of physical affection. Even the kind that wasn't completely to mostly naked with lots of fluids and panting, and leather, and sometimes ropes or even the wh-
ANYWAYS, derailing that train of thought before his body got the wrong impression, the point was that he could enjoy a hug now and again, especially from Neo. However, Neo usually wasn't quite so… grippy, as she was being now. She'd locked arms around him and had yet to let go, long past the point that she knew he liked his hugs to end. As a result, it was getting a little awkward in the control room, corpses of the dead Atlesian soldiers and officer about, and hired help standing off to the side, watching as the embrace went on… and on… and on.
Alabaster, keeping proper form, stood calmly with his feet together and hands behind his back, watching as his employers continued hugging while there was a no-holds barred air-battle going around the ship they were in, a battle that he could occasionally glimpse through the large pane windows at the front of the bridge. He kept his expression purposefully unperturbed as a trio of Griffons flew past the windows, followed by a pair of White Fang bullheads firing their cyclical minigun rounds after them, a few hits strafing across the window on the way and leaving small impact 'spiderwebs' on the panes that they hit.
Alabaster, feeling that perhaps it would be better to move things along BEFORE something destroyed the ship, brought his right hand up from behind his back to his mouth in a fist, and politely 'coughed' into it to remind Miss Neopolitan that she had an audience. Then he 'coughed' again, a little more forcefully, to remind her that there was an ongoing situation that could possibly get them killed if they didn't resolve it… and then sighed lightly as it became apparent that Neo didn't especially care, moving his hand back behind his back and hoping that Mister Torchwick would bring her to her senses before something important blew up.
The airship 'SHOOK' slightly, as some kind of impact from outside reverberated through the metal, shaking the corpses around the three living people on the ship lightly, and making Roman stumble just a bit, though not much due to Neo's stabilizing grip and her own ability to stay perfectly balanced while the ship shook. Still, the motion impressed upon Roman a certain degree of urgency, and he looked towards Alabaster with his right eyebrow raised, a questioning glance to if he knew why Neo was being so insistently clingy. After all, he had been the last person to interact with Neo before they reunited.
Alabaster simply shrugged his shoulders up, then down, hands still behind his back. He had no idea what was going through the ice cream girl's mind at the moment and knew better than to guess, especially when he was so… distracted by the possibility of impending doom.
Roman suppressed an aggravated sigh, and looked back down to Neo, before making his face move into a slightly awkward grin. Moving his left hand up to his mouth for a moment he let out a slightly anxious cough, some smoke drifting up from his cigar with the motion, before moving his left hand back down to Neo's back and giving it a tentative 'pat-pat-pat', while his right moved to pluck the cigar from his lips, letting Melodic Cudgel rest by its hook on the forearm.
"H-hey Neo, I'm glad to see you to, but-uh, we do have to actually fly the airship to escape in it. So it doesn't, y'know, get destroyed by the Grimm? With us inside? Kinda want to avoid that here." Spoke Roman, before smirking a bit, a more familiar and cocky glint coming to his eye.
"And plus I want to play with this WONDERFUL new toy! Come on, let's take this thing out for a test drive! Shoot some Grimm, blow up some airships, maybe fire a volley or two at Beacon to scare the kiddies! Whatdya say Neo, let's go and have some FUN!" Spoke Roman with a grin, tip of his cigar choosing that moment to ominously 'glow' as he finished speaking.
Neo took a deep breath in, head still buried in Roman's coat as she did so. Not that either of the males there would understand it, but she was taking a good deep inhalation of his scent, just as with the hugging she was keeping a good firm grasp on HIM. Then, absolutely certain that he was real and not going to disappear if she let go, she finally unlocked her arms from around the crime-lord, stepped back, looked up to him with a smirk, and brought her left arm up in a 'Salute' to her boss, a sadistic glint in her eyes… brown left and pink right this time around.
Roman grinned as Neo returned to more or less regular form.
"Now THAT'S what I like to hear!" He spoke, right hand moving his cigar back to his mouth, and letting his Melodic Cudgel fall up his arm back towards his hand, gripping it beneath the hook and stepping past Neo with a grin, passing by the dead officer and stepping over the dead soldier on the floor on his way down the stairs, and towards the front console. As he reached it he put Melodic Cudgel down, leaning it against the console on the right side and stepped up to the middle, looking at the screen that was currently displaying a map of Remnant, then looking down to the buttons and options on the interface, sucking on the end of his cigar in thought.
Neo turned as he moved past and just watched him as he went to get things started, smirking with an all-too familiar glint in her eyes as she watched, knowing that life was about to get interesting again… Though her focus on Roman did not prevent her from noting the presence of Alabaster, stepping up to her left, arms still behind his back, looking at the crime lord as well. But when the hireling spoke, it was to her, and quietly so that Roman couldn't overhear.
"You've returned much sooner than you implied." He stated simply, his voice low and calm, but with a clear and icy edge within.
"You did not perhaps decide to abscond on my payment in favor of time?" He questioned, turning a pair of hard, narrowed eyes down towards the lethal umbrella-wielder. The ice-cream girl looked up to him in response, meeting his own eyes with her heterochromatic pair, and gave an innocent little smile… before slipping her scroll out from her left pocket into her left hand, holding it up, pushing a few 'beep'-ing buttons with her thumb, then raising it up at arm's length, slightly up and to the left for him to see.
Alabaster, raising his right eyebrow a bit at Neopolitan's response, leaned down and to the right to get a better look. And then three things happened in succession. His eyes widened, then narrowed, and then he turned both of them back to Neo in a glare, keeping his body rigid in position as he turned his head to look at her.
"Really? And this method was entirely necessary was it?" He asked, an apparent edge and agitation to his voice. Neo simply fluttered her eyes cutely at the agitated hireling, and grinned wider, obviously quite pleased with herself about whatever was getting beneath Alabaster's skin. The hireling, in response, closed both his eyes, breathed in deeply through his nose, then slowly out through his mouth… and opened his eyes again, a grudging calm returned to him.
"Well, you do work fast Miss Neopolitan, I must say that." He stated simply, still with a bit of an edge, before straightening up, and moving his left hand up to his tie, adjusting it slightly as he cracked his head side to side, and then rolled his shoulders back, releasing some tension.
"And speaking of work, it is time that I get back to it." He continued, back to his regular stoic calm, before looking over the ice cream girl towards the upper-right console that the dead blonde officer was draped over, then turning and walking past Neo towards the corpse.
Stepping up calmly to the body formerly known as Officer Straw, Amelia to her friends, he moved his left hand to grip it by its right shoulder.
"Pardon me." He requested calmly, then SHOVED the body off of the console, letting it crumple to the floor showing a paling face and dull blue eyes as she lay dead, while he stepped up closer to the console, moving his left hand back up and into his suit-interior at the right side.
"Thank you." He continued on, addressing the corpse that was really well past any situation where gratitude could be useful, and pulled his scroll out from his suit, standard classy black-cased affair, before slipping it into the console's insert slot. Immediately, a cascade of orange ones and zeroes began to stream down the screen of his scroll, downloading themselves into the console proper. He looked over the console's display for a moment, before moving his fingers deftly across the interface, beginning to pull images onto the display, images that looked mostly like fluctuating wavy lines in rectangles.
These 'wavy lines' were physical representations of CCTS signals. The Transmit System being the method by which Atlas, and pretty much all the kingdoms, did anything involving their advanced technology. The signals exchanged through it were constant, on numerous different frequencies, all with their own intricacies and in their own unique language. If one didn't know how to read them, they were essentially gibberish in this form. If one did, then these wavy lines on a screen could reveal WORLDS of information. Something that Junior had never understood. And yet, somehow, he had managed to wrap his thick head around opportunism. Incredible how he was only monumentally stupid when it came to things OTHER than fucking up other people's lives.
Alabaster suppressed that line of bitter thoughts before it went too far and got to work, looking over the signals to see which were the most active as his Cipher downloaded. Roman, hearing the hum of another console in use, lifted his eyes from his own and glanced back over his shoulder to Alabaster calmly examining his console's display screen.
"Huh, you playing with the console there Al, or do you actually know how to use Atlas tech?" Asked Roman, right eyebrow raised in curiosity.
"The second one Mister Torchwick, most notably their communication systems and CCTS signal tracking. It was a part of my former employment." Stated Alabaster succinctly as he continued to move his hands across the console, before looking over towards the crime lord.
"And what of yourself Mister Torchwick? Do you know how to fly this new 'toy' of yours?" He asked, gaze calm.
"Oh sure, sure." Spoke Roman, plucking his cigar from his mouth with his right hand, holding it between the index and middle finger, and waving his hand in a dismissive gesture.
"I mean all Atlas tech is basically the same, so how hard could it be?" He asked, index finger of the left hand moving down to press a button.
BOOOOM!
The heavy stomps of the Goliath cracked the street beneath its feet, Beowolves and Creeps clambering about to its sides and behind it, howling and growling, lining the street as the behemoth made its way forward with the patient ruthlessness and calculating cruelty it's kind was known for. Staying back only by the command of the superior Goliath, the Beowolves and Creeps could barely contain their excitement as the Goliath used itself as a shield, and stomped its way down towards the mortal defenders of Vale, tanking shots from Atlesian rifles and small caliber rounds as it went.
At the far end of the street, holed up in a former storefront with large broken ground-floor window and a pair of broken second-tier windows, were still living defenders from the Atlesian military and Vale police force. On the ground floor, six individuals were arranged in a firing position, four at the window, and two at the door. The four at the window were, from left to right, a blue-tinted armored Atlesian soldier with rifle, a pistol-armed Vale police officer in the standard white dress shirt, suspenders, and sunglasses, another Atlesian soldier, red armored with a rifle, and another blue-tinge armored Atlesian soldier with rifle.
At the door, a brown haired faunus girl with medium-length hair, bunny ears, dark brown shirt, tan pants, and dark brown shoes on her feet, was firing out with an automatic rifle, the same type used by the White Fang actually, recovered from one of their fallen soldiers. Next to her, an Atlesian soldier in blue armor tinge was firing out as well with his sidearm, sending his blue energized burst shots down the streets with her rapid yellow impact rounds.
At the second floor, there were two to a window, an Atlesian soldier with red tinged armor holding a rifle and firing out from the left window, with another Vale police officer, suspenders, white dress shirt, tie, somewhat wild hair, and sunglasses, firing with his sidearm out of the window. And the next window over, another red tinged Atlesian soldier was making do with his pistol, firing out as the blue-tinged soldier next to him fired out with his rifle.
And of course what all these brave defenders had in common was that they were firing desperately at the oncoming Goliath, who was taking their shots like they were nothing, and continued its steady, pounding gait down to their position, savoring the futility of their last stand before it annihilated them.
The Vale officer on the ground floor grimaced, black bearded chin and cheeks following the motion, and squeezed his pistol trigger a few more times, putting another few useless rounds against the monster's hide. He knew that they couldn't bring the thing down, and that when it crashed through their defenses they'd be at the mercy of not only the giant elephant-like monstrosity, but the two-dozen or so Grimm accompanying it. He wanted to run. He wanted to run, and run, and just keep on running until he was on an airship headed out of Vale, and then he wanted to run farther because if Vale wasn't safe than nowhere was.
But if he did that, if he ran, then these Grimm would get to the civilians huddled back in the building's storeroom without even a distracting meal on the way… And if he ran and just let that happen, just let those people die afraid and undefended, then he'd never forgive himself. So he stayed there, pulling the trigger, putting another useless round into the Goliath's hide, then another, and another, and prayed to whatever Dust-giving god that was up there for some kind of miracle to save them from their oncoming death.
BOOOOM!
The high-impact shot of a Steel-Dust Artillery Round launched at a massive velocity from an Air-to-Ground Cannon on General Ironwood's personal airship struck the Goliath dead-center, cut through it like it was butter, and smashed into the street. The Goliath was split straight down the middle, a slight rearranging of its facial mask indicating surprise, before the steel shrapnel EXPLODED out in a million directions, along with an accompanying shockwave.
The metal fragments shredded through the Grimm on all sides, punching through the skin and into the houses nearby. Until those houses were hit milliseconds later by a massive shockwave of displaced air and energy, blowing out all the structures that had been around the Goliath and quite a few past those in every direction. At the same time, the shockwave sent the eviscerated and dismembered corpse parts of the Grimm flying out through the air, dissolving into black particles mid-arch, and leaving nothing but a big crater in the center of the street surrounded by collapsed buildings.
Fortunately for the defenders their shop was far back enough that they only caught the tail end of the shockwave. They ducked behind their covers, letting the dust kicked up from the force, and some pieces of metal, fly over and through into the store, gritting their teeth and shielding their ears from the accompanying boom… Then slowly, as one, they all cautiously looked out from their cover at the lonely street, Grimm disappeared and decimation clear… After a few seconds, a 'Clunk' sounded as the twisted center-section of a lamppost hit the street just a little in front of the crater. And the street was silent again.
"… Huh." Sounded the officer at the former storefront window, blinking behind his sunglasses, staring where the Goliath and raging monsters had been just a few moments ago.
"I guess I'll uh, start praying more often." He spoke, clicking his tongue slightly after the 'uh, and continuing to stare at the crater left by the shell, a sure sign of divine intervention if ever he'd seen one.
Alabaster slowly raised his left eyebrow up at Roman as the criminal mastermind cautiously lifted his finger off the button, and brought his left hand back to rub the back of his head.
"Heheheh, so, um, yeeeahhh… there a, uh, manual for this thing or something?" he muttered, looking over the buttons and sliders of the holographic interface as though they'd suddenly give up their secrets just from the looking. Neo, with a silent giggle and a roll of her eyes, stepped down the bridge stairs, over the bodies, and walked up to stand at Roman's left, right hand fishing into her pants pocket and pulling out a small green book with the Atlas emblem emblazoned on the front in white, waving it playfully in front of Roman so that he could see it. Roman's visible eye lit up as he saw the booklet.
"Ah!" The mastermind spoke as he took the booklet with his left hand and moved his cigar to the side of his mouth at the right, biting down slightly as he opened up the booklet and started flipping through it.
"Here we gooooo just having a little refresher here, nothing to worry about." Muttered Roman as he scanned over the pages, refamiliarizing himself with Atlas tech and the specifics of the airship. As he did that, Alabaster calmly and professionally repressed the panic boiling in his chest, and with a perfect poker face turned his attention back to what was more directly within his power to control. Namely, the signal-readings in front of him.
As his Cipher downloaded into the ship systems from his Scroll, the console display and interface in front of him turned from Atlas's pale green to a bright orange, the fluctuating waves presented on screen changing shade, then beginning to display secondary lines beneath the originals, with small screens opening up next to the rectangles containing scrolling numbers and letters. With a practiced eye and just as practiced patience, Alabaster began to sort through the information, moving his hands across the console interface and opening up a central rectangular window on the display, vertically stretching across its length. Calmly, he began to pull wave containing rectangles from the sides into the central window, focusing in on the more rapidly fluctuating signals.
"Okay, right, I got it, it's like an oversized Bullhead. Just with more guns. A LOT more guns. And bigger. Annnnd with a completely different control system. Easy." Muttered Roman around his cigar, nodding slightly to himself, before 'tossing' the booklet over his shoulder with his left hand, and plucking his cigar from his mouth with his right, then 'grinding' it out against the metal surface of the console.
Roman moved his hands back to the console interface in front of him, closed his eyes and cracked his neck side to side, before smirking wide, and opening his visible eye again, a dangerous glint within, fire sparking behind the iris.
"Now then, this little button opened the forward aerial view." He spoke, calmly pressing a button on the left of the console with his left index finger, causing the entire console display screen to 'glow' to life and show a wide image view of the airspace in front of the airship. It was, as one might expect, absolutely chaotic. The sky was filled with Grimm, Nevermores and Griffons, swarming about. White Fang bullheads were still in the mix, the different models firing their miniguns or rockets at the various opponents, bullets and missiles firing through the sky as the White Fang engaged the Grimm.
There didn't seem to be any Atlesian gunships present though, possibly pulled back to another location, or destroyed, Torchwick didn't really know or care. He had his fun-time targets right there in front of him. With that thought Roman smirked a little more, and brought his right hand up, index finger extended.
"And THIS little button marked 'all present targets'." He spoke, pressing his finger down to a light 'beep' that then saw every Grimm and bullhead on the screen highlighted with little red outlines, flashing statistics and analysis readouts in little boxes to the right of each image, special readouts appearing next to the Bullheads weaponry to identify the make, model, and danger levels present. Roman completely ignored that information, as he instead turned his eyes down to another button on the console.
"And this little button? Ohohoho, THIS one… lit up the world." He spoke, putting his right index finger to the button, and pressing it down.
Outside, the five huge white panels on either side of the airship suddenly 'hissed' out steam around their tops and the edges facing to the front. With a series of-
'Clink'
'Clink'
'Clink'
'Clink'
'Clink's, sounding, each of the panels consecutively opened out, tilting as the back stayed to the airship and the fronts opened up to reveal twin vertical lines of perfectly circular holes, set into the grey metal beneath by the panels. A moment after their revelation, each of the circular holes glowed red, shining out an ominous light from deep inside, and then-
SKRRREEEEEE!
Proceeded to launch a series of screaming, red glowing orbs out into the air, streaking through the sky and leaving red smoke trailing behind them, as they poured out from the airship. They did not shoot straight however. As they entered into the air they turned, and soared, towards the Grimm and bullheads, headed for their nearest marked targets. And when one struck, it did exactly what it was meant to do, and went BOOOOM! Exploding out in raging red flames born of concentrated fire dust, consuming Grimm and reducing them to ash in moments, igniting entire Bullheads with metal-melting flame, burning away the aura of the White Fang soldiers and cooking them alive inside of their Bullheads, all before causing their engines to suffer critical failures and EXPLODE.
But even that wasn't enough destruction for the spheres, oh no. For each impact, a dozen red flares STREAKED out from the exploded sphere's location, arching and tracing through the sky for targets, much as their progenitors had done, and impacting with nearly as much force, igniting Grimm and Bullhead alike with crimson fire. Burning metal, cooking flesh, and turning Grimm to ash… Turning the forces arrayed before the airship into a brilliant red pyre.
Neo clapped her hands with glee, and literally 'jumped' up and down with excitement as the airship's wide frontal view went red, shining bloody light accompanying the explosions of flame, the once vibrant sky turned from blue to crimson and filled with fire and ash and dust. It was just like a fireworks show! Only better because things were dying horribly and in agony! As for Roman himself, he had a similar reaction to the events unfolding.
"WOOHAHAHAHAHAHA! YES BABY! I AM BACK! HAHAHAHAHA!"
Alabaster looked over from his signals to his employers, smirking a bit as he saw Neopolitan hopping up and down like a giddy schoolgirl, and Roman laughing out loud at his success, obviously getting quite a bit of catharsis out of just that one act of destruction. While he wasn't quite so unreserved in his enjoyment of destruction as the criminal pair, he did have to admit, that seeing them act with such a healthy appreciation of intensely violent pyrotechnics was strangely pleasant. It did seem like they were having quite a bit of… fun.
Shaking his head with his own amused smirk, he looked back to his own display screen, back to the signals he'd focused on… … And then frowned slightly.
"Hmm? That… should not be occurring." He muttered, before pressing a few choice buttons on the interface, pulling the object of his concern, a particularly active wavelength, into focus, making it fill up the entire console display as he examined it.
While he did this, Roman recovered from his laughing fit, and shook his head with a couple chuckles still, wide grin now on his face.
"Oh! Oh I needed that. Whew, okay, let's see here, where'd that Nevermore fly off to? I'd like to 'thank' it for its attention earlier…" Spoke Roman, another spark to his eyes and a practically sadistic grin on his face as he moved his fingers to the thruster controls, and began to tilt the airship around, causing it to circle and sweeping the forward aerial view across the sky, scanning for the target of Roman's vengeance.
Meanwhile, Alabaster looked over the signal in-depth, narrowing his eyes until he was practically glaring at the display. He wanted to believe he was mistaken about what he was seeing, that he couldn't be right. But between his Cipher, and the simple fact that he knew he knew what he was doing, he was unable to do so. Despite the unsettling nature of what he was being presented with, he had to acknowledge that it was accurate. He was right, what he was seeing was happening, and it was-
"Less than optimal." he muttered, straightening up and just glaring at the signal display, white-gloved hands moving to his sides and tightening up into fists.
"Far, far less than optimal." He clarified, continuing to glare at the signal representation as though it would change just by the power of his desiring it to not be what it was.
Alabaster's commentary caught the ears of Roman and Neo both. Roman glanced back over his right shoulder, looking away from the screen which was now showing pitched battle across the skies in other places, catching glances of Atlesian gunships and White Fang Bullheads going at it as it angled back towards Vale proper. The crime lord raised his visible brow at Alabaster, while Neo hopped up on the console, sitting to Roman's left with her legs kicking out a bit as she leaned back, hands to her sides, umbrella at her right, and looked to Alabaster with a curious gaze.
"Hey, Al, what's the problem? Something wrong with my new ship here?" asked Roman, obviously putting first priority where it was needed. Alabaster looked back to the mastermind, and calmed his gaze, before turning to face the crime lord and moving his hands behind his back again.
"Aside from the battle damage? Nothing that I can see Mister Torchwick, the comm-tech is working fine." Stated Alabaster, before grimacing a bit.
"However, having used said comm-tech, I must now amend my earlier report regarding the signal broadcast during the Vytal Festival Tournament." He spoke, causing Roman to arch his brow a bit further.
"Okkkaaayyy don't make me wait for it Al spit it out we're on a deadline here." He spoke, and Alabaster, wisely choosing not to address how Roman was drawing out that deadline to try and get revenge on a Grimm, cleared his throat slightly before replying.
"Well, firstly, the signal that infected Atlas's Knights and other robotic creations did not 'broadcast', in the past tense. It is still broadcasting, actively, as we speak. I would need to examine it longer to be absolutely certain, however it appears to be receiving information from the infected robots, then redistributing it through the CCT network, and then distributing new information back to the robots… In short, it is receiving battlefield information and giving them orders, much as a general directs their forces." Spoke Alabaster, this information causing Roman's visible eye to narrow as he considered the implications.
"Hmmm, okay, not the best news ever but we're in an airship and they're on the ground so that's not exactly immediate here. What else?" He asked, glancing at the display screen in front of him and the battle thereon to check for the Giant Nevermore, before looking back to Alabaster.
"The second correction to my earlier report, Mister Torchwick, is that the signal controlling Atlas's robotic forces is not broadcasting across Vale." Spoke the pale male, as Roman raised his visible eyebrow a bit further at that.
"It is broadcasting across Remnant." Finished Alabaster. Roman blinked… then his visible eye widened. A moment later Neo's eyes did to, and turned white in the same motion, as they both grasped the full implications of that statement. Roman slowly turned away from Alabaster back to the screen in front of him, watching the Grimm, Bullheads, and Atlesian gunships battle in the sky, with a carefully detached expression.
"… … I see… remind me, how many of Atlas's troops are robotic these days?" Asked Roman slowly, to which Neo gulped, and slipped out her scroll into her left hand. She quickly and rapidly typed across it with her right hand, and then moved it down in front of Roman so that he could see. Roman glanced at the scroll, and sucked in a hiss of breath.
"Oooooohhhh… Nine robots for every human huh?" He queried to which Neo nodded slightly. Roman, slowly and almost cautiously, reached over with his right hand to the cigar he'd ground out on the console, picked it up, and put it back to his mouth, carefully starting to chew on the end of his extinguished cigar.
Silence reigned on the bridge for a few moments, before Roman moved the cigar back out from his mouth, expression remaining neutral.
"… Well f-"
SSSCCRRRRAAAAAAWWWW!
The sound of the Giant Nevermore roaring its rage, and the sight of it FILLING the forward aerial view, flying up right in front of the airship, interrupted Roman's thoughtful musings.
"Whoa!" Shouted Roman, quickly moving his hands back to the console interface and manipulating the thrusters.
The airship pulled back and down to the right, just in time as the Giant Nevermore gave a massive FLAP of its wings, and sent a hail of sharpened feathers through the air, a few 'PING'-ing off the airships side as it dodged the main hail.
The sudden shift in momentum actually saw Neo lean forward on the console to keep her balance, then hop off to allow Roman full piloting room. Roman, using the console as leverage, kept his footing easily enough, while Alabaster seemed strangely unaffected by the movement, able to keep himself straight without apparent problem.
"Oh so the big bird's come back to play huh? Wonderful." Spoke Roman, actually grinning again as he moved his right hand up and tossed his extinguished cigar aside, before bringing his right hand back down to the console.
"Now let's see here, which button was the las-" Roman started, before a- THUMP sound interrupted him, yet again he noticed with some agitation, by a noise coming from seemingly above them. Alabaster, Neo, and Roman all looked up at the noise. And the subsequent sounds coming after it.
THUMP
THUMP
THUMP
THUMP
Roman narrowed his visible eye, knowing full well what those thumps meant.
"-er. Annnnnd that would be something landing on the airship. Wonderful." He spoke, this time being sarcastic at the last part, before lowering his head and sighing with a glower.
"Atlas makes a full-forward aerial view for their airships and individual target-seeking death spheres, but can't put any guns or cameras on the actual roof. World's greatest military power everyone, give them a hand!" Spoke Roman sarcastically, before glaring back to the area screen in front of him, seeing the tail feathers of the Nevermore flitting off and up-left as it maneuvered itself out of the airship's way, likely prepping for another strike from a position that Roman couldn't shoot at.
"Ugghhhh." Sounded Roman in agitation, even as another THUMP sounded from the roof, and turned to look over his left shoulder to Neo.
"Neo, go and take care of whoever that is would you?" He asked, Neo's eyes lighting up, turning to pink left and brown right, as she gave an eager nod, and turned to jog up to the upper bridge floor and over to the door. As he watched Neo move though, Roman had a thought, and turned a curious gaze back over to Alabaster, who was still standing calmly with his hands behind his back, eyes narrowed at the roof.
"Hey Al, can you fight?" he asked, the question causing Alabaster to look back down to Roman and blink in surprise… before smirking. Smirking in that scary, borderline psychotic way that Roman was used to seeing from Neo, deadly, filled with humor, and accompanied by a dark glint in the hireling's dull-white eyes.
"Yes Mister Torchwick. I can fight." He spoke, a low and predatory tone accompany his words, mixed in with a huge amount of subtle humor, as though he was catching a joke that Roman was missing. The crime lord raised his left eyebrow a little more at this response, then just shook his head with a grunt and raised his right hand, waving Alabaster off.
"Well great then glad to hear it, go help Neo clear out the stowaways. I'm going to do some bird hunting." Spoke Roman, eye narrowing once more as he moved his hands to the interface, and began turning it back up and left, trying to track the Giant Nevermore.
Alabaster, despite no longer being watched by the crime lord, calmly moved his right hand forward and around to his chest, palm over the heart, and bowed forward slightly.
"Of course Mister Torchwick." He stated simply, before straightening, turning and walking over towards the comm console. Calmly he 'plucked' his Scroll from the device with his left hand, Cipher having already downloaded, and slid it closed as he proceeded towards the sliding door, slipping it into his inner-right suit pocket.
Neo, who had stopped at the now-opened sliding door, waited curiously as Roman addressed Alabaster, then watched the hireling as he approached. She stood, with a smirk on her lips, a cocky glint to her eyes, and her left hand on her hip as she looked up at the taller suited male walking up to her. As he stopped and stood in front of her, she tilted her head up to meet his eyes, and smirked a little wider. Her eyes seemed to shine as they gazed into his, sharing a message with him, a message that said 'Bet you that you can't kill more than me. Bet you that you can't even keep up with me'.
Alabaster gave Neopolitan a wry smile in response to her silent message, and bowed forward slightly, his right forearm moving to cross his stomach with the palm of his right hand upwards towards the doorway, as though offering it to the smaller ice cream lady.
"After you, Miss Neopolitan." He spoke simply. Neo, smirked a little more, then turned and walked through, practically sashaying out, ready to get to killing. Alabaster straightened himself up as she left, moved his right hand back behind his back, and followed her out calmly, letting the door slide closed behind them as they went to take care of business.
Roman sighed out as the henchwoman and henchman left to deal with his newest headache, and narrowed his eyes at the screen in front of him as he kept scanning for the Giant Nevermore that had dodged from his view. And as he did so, he thought on some things.
"Soooooooooo… robot apocalypse huh? Can't say that I saw that one coming. Honestly at least." He admitted to himself, before letting out a sigh, shaking his head and looking back to the screen with a grim expression.
"Well, as far as end of the world scenarios go this is one of the worst. Knocked the Grimm right off their perch as humanity's scary existence-ending threat. And unless they've got something particularly nasty in the works, I don't think they're going to be getting that spot back anytime soon…" He muttered, narrowing his eyes as he continued to scan the horizon.
Far away, on the side of a particular mountain known for tragedy and death, looming over the ruins of a failed expansion, a little crack appeared… Tiny, small, insignificant in the overall structure of the mountain. And then that tiny crack widened just a little, lengthened a little more… and slowly started to spread…
.
(And hello again! So, I'm still working on figuring some things out with formatting and the like, I like the horizontal line option however I'm wondering if there aren't some more fun ways to separate my sections or the like... Ah, however, to a closer point. I'm not good at individually responding to people, I do it sometimes however for the most part I'm silent. However, I read and appreciate reviews and want more of them. SO! I'm going to try something and start responding them to here in the bottoms of these chapters, to address your thoughts and so that you know I actually read them. For this one starting out, I'll do both Chapter 1 and 2, and then for those that follow, I'll do it for the reviews left on the previous chapter only. Hope this is good!
To, CoolHandJaune: Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy, and intend to continue it!
To, AnAustralianGamer: I'm glad that it picked up for you, and hope that it entertains as things go forward! Thank you for sticking around.
To, Lord of Tuft: Thank you very much! And I'm glad you excited, hope it continues to keep your attention and entertain.
To, Kid Lanterns Legacy: Thank you, I'm glad that you are enjoying my O.C. and find my presentation of Roman accurate! I do intend to keep it up, and I hope you find the shenanigans, when they occur, entertaining.
To, New Universe Returns: Well, I don't plan to kill off our dear Roman... put him into life-threatening situations and give him plenty of headaches? Absolutely. But not kill him. In fact, what I intend for him in this story, and Neo for that matter, is very much in line with the song 'Empire' from Monster High: Boo York. Lovely little piece of music, I rather enjoy it, and it may be treated as a glimpse of the future for these criminals...
To, LoveForeverNow: Ooooh, I like how you said that, and it makes me smile that you call my Alabaster a gentleman, he does try. And I'm very glad! I hope that the story continues to be entertaining for you!)
