Chapter Five: Chaos
-.-.-
Ironwood sat at his desk, sipping his coffee while swiping through documents on the main holographic display. If he glanced up, he could see the live feeds of the remaining four streams. Alpha, Charlie, Delta, and Echo. Beta Stream had that unfortunate run-in with the Deathstalker nest in the earthquake and the survivors were all in Medical.
He let out a breath as he leaned back in his seat, ignoring the documents in favour of checking up on the remaining potentials.
Alpha Stream were in their dining hall, nicely segmenting into small groups. They showed promise for improvised companionship and teamwork, more so than the other streams. There were a few incidents here and there with clashing personalities, but those were to be expected in the stream of potential leadership candidates.
Delta Stream seemed to be playing some sort of gaming tournament on a few of the terminals they'd hacked into. A quick reminder of their general backgrounds showed a lot of potential for R&D and hunting missions targeting rogue Hunters, but their combat skills left something to be desired. It still would have to be seen if they could follow orders, rather than the democratic cliques they'd assembled.
Echo Stream were… nowhere to be found. Ironwood raised an eyebrow for a moment before switching the feed to one of the less obvious cameras. Most of them were hiding in the corners or forming small groups, sharing information and checking out each other's weapons. The least promising group, in his opinion, but a fair number had survived. Stealth had its place, he supposed.
And as for Charlie Stream… he watched the fight break out and shook his head with a sigh. Charlie Stream, unlike the others, had no focus. It was the odds and ends of people that didn't really fit in with the rest. They weren't leaders, they weren't tech-heads, they certainly weren't stealthy. Good fighters, but - disorganised. With a few exceptions. He watched the Schnee girl stride into the room, attempt to break up the fight before the scion lashed out with her particulate beam.
It would be interesting to see how she would - and she was wading into the fight. He sighed, adding 'Requires additional Pylons patience' to the notes on her file. He groaned, deleting the word 'Pylons'. That damned game had been on his mind too much recently.
He took another sip of coffee. Cold. His face scrunched, and he watched the developing fight with some interest.
Cinerous was performing well. Hardly surprising given her heritage. As was the barbarian girl. For an over-privileged child, the Schnee girl wasn't doing too badly either. The throttling with Cinerous' chain was a master stroke that might have worked in another circumstance.
"So, do you plan to anything about this upcoming disaster?" a voice asked behind him.
James spared a glance over his shoulder. "You know how things are, Glynda." He watched the panic as the chemicals he'd subtly injected the barbarian girl with took effect, driving her into the berserker rage. "Besides. It's all going as planned."
"If you want an easier way for your students to kill each other just-"
"They won't kill each other. But you know that the more… esoteric Grimm can have odd effects on Hunters. Not to mention grudge matches, sudden losses of temper, misjudging strikes - how will they deal with a friendly sparring match becoming a threat? And if some of the weaker combatants do die, well. Then, while unfortunate, they wouldn't have been worthy Hunters."
"Worthy Hunters or not, they are still people, James." Glynda sternly reminded him. "We didn't make peace after the War just for individuality to be forgotten."
"Individuality is never forgotten. But… sometimes it must be suppressed in some to allow it to flourish in others. A sacrifice to allow the majority the freedom they deserve. A willing, understanding sacrifice. I would never ask them to do anything I myself would not be willing to do."
"That's what I'm afraid of, James."
-.-.-
Maverick used his Semblance to jump around the room, looking for Necro-Cutie. He was having trouble identifying her distinctive appearance among the flashing crowd of… well, very colourful people.
"Damnit, damnit, damn- WHOA!" his face transformed into an expression of shock as he slid under one of the berserker's punches. The girl was going nuts, silent except for the odd roar as she spun and lashed out with fists and feet. One foot slammed like a mace into some kid's ribs and he went flying with a crack of bone as she rolled back to pick up her shield.
She was so fucking fast. Way faster than anyone that heavily armoured had any right to be.
Maverick dived, pulling a fresh gun out of his holster before thinking better of it and putting it away again. At this point, the best he could do was attract attention to himself… and having a raging berserker after his head wasn't that high on his bucket list.
The tall girl slammed forward, a lunge extending her greatsword into its spear-shape to temporarily knock the berserker back. Old school, but effective - especially with the spinning aftermath of flame dust as she launched into a long combo of strikes blocked on the giantess's forearms, scoring and scorching the armour there.
Searching desperately, Maverick failed to find who he was looking for. Although, he did find her friend, what'd she call herself… Ashlyn! He raced over and grabbed her unconscious body, heaving her over his shoulder as he got moving again, cursing at himself for overextending his Semblance earlier.
Another screeched roar, and he looked to see the berserker charge into the tall girl, shield extended. The girl didn't move, somehow stopping the charge in its tracks, but her armour crumpled and warped with the blow, dagger driving out in attacks to attempt to get the monster to back off.
That whiny brat, Blue, in an odd fit of bravery, tried to come up behind her and smack the stock of her sniper into the back of the berserker's helm. Maverick had a hard time deciding whether to laugh or wince.
But when the armoured giantess simply twisted around, grabbed her by the ankle, and used her as a club against the other girl, he laughed. Unfortunately, that drew her attention and he suddenly found himself ducking the blue girl's limp body. She - she fucking threw Blue at him!
Blue hit the wall with an unforgiving thwack behind him as berserk-lady started pummeling tall-girl. She managed to dodge most of the hits, only getting clipped at best until one strike left her open for a Spartan kick to the gut. Maverick was honestly surprised she'd seen that Spruce Willis movie.
He grimaced when Slade popped up to take Tallgirl's place. He was firing his dinky little pistols - but then he shifted, ten or twenty shadows leaning out from his body, all firing as well. A virtual platoon of gunfire, focused on a few spots on the berserker's armour.
It was a good plan, but the giantess just didn't seem to care about the gunfire. It probably would have worked if ol' Deathstroke had a half-decent weapon. Instead, she threw out her hand to grab him - he dodged aside, but her followup shield bash sent him flying with the distinctive crack of failing aura.
Maverick groaned, pulling out his highest-caliber hand-cannon. It'd taken him ages to get this beauty finished. It was a single-shot coilgun - a 'gauss' pistol in common terms - firing a heavy high explosive penetrating slug, like some of his other pistols did. But, you know, higher calibre and faster and with a core of repulsion dust to literally shove armour in its path aside.
The recoil was a bitch though.
-.-.-
Winter was - she was struggling to deal with the situation, if she was honest with herself. Bastion was a berserker - she'd heard the bedtime stories from nurses, both good and bad, but she'd never heard of any actual scientific evidence suggesting the phenomenon was real -
A deafening crack as Maverick fired something at her and she stumbled, before spinning round to charge the boy.
Was there anything she could do? Most of the glyphs she could think of wouldn't hold anything that strong for long, and she had no way to quickly deploy her dust to enhance the glyphs other than by opening and sprinkling vials, a delicate task that would require not being interrupted by a charging behemoth of a woman.
But she had to try.
Glimmering blue ice dust vial in hand, she launched herself forward towards the rampaging Bastion. Maverick was managing to avoid her blows - barely - with what Winter assumed was his own Semblance, a series of teleports.
"Whoa - hey if you're planning to help -" another blink and he was standing next to her, "Distract her for a moment?" and then he was gone again. "Slade, covering fire if you can!"
The nerve! The -
Bastion bore down on her and she dived backwards, summoning a glyph carefully concealed beneath the berserker's giant shield that held her in place for an instant before she threw the ice vial, fingerflicks conjuring more minute glyphs to receive the infusion.
Whereupon the berserker stepped away from them and slammed her foot into her stomach.
Winter had taken hits in sparring before. She'd even taken bad hits that had left her bruised and aching for weeks afterwards.
They were nothing in comparison to that impact.
Its touch left her unable to breathe, her whole chest felt numb for an instant before screaming out in burning cold agony - and that was with her aura up. Barely.
How strong was she?
She slid herself aside with another set of glyphs, coughing and struggling to stand. Her ice-mines would detonate soon, and if the berserker wasn't in them, then - she'd have wasted her dust, and the girl would remember, wouldn't fall for the trap again.
Bastion charged, and Winter ran as fast as she could for her line of glyphs.
Those half seconds seemed to last forever. She felt the whistle of air of the giantess bringing her shield down, knew it would cut through her aura and into her skull, crush the bone and brain - if she was lucky she'd die, unlucky she'd become a drooling idiot - hear the crackle of gunfire as Maverick and Slade tried to distract her -
The ice detonated, an unfocused fractal crystal springing up almost under her feet, wrapping round Bastion like a lover and, for the moment pinning her in place. Winter stumbled and rolled away, end of her jacket ripping from where it had been caught. Her breathing was heavy, tasting of iron.
Maverick blinked down and helped her to her feet. It felt like the entire room breathed a sigh of relief. "Sorry about that, had to, heh, dump Ash somewhere out of aggro." Maverick apologised - wow, that must have been a first for him - stepping away the moment she was up.
Panting, she said, "You could've just - "
Then the ice started cracking.
"WELL THAT'S JUST FUCKING WONDERFUL." Maverick exclaimed loudly in exasperation, grabbing Winter in an unappreciated one-armed hug and pushing before space seemed to warp and her stomach churned and she found herself on the second floor, dropping to her knees and trying not to puke.
"How the fuck do we stop her?" Slade was grimacing, clutching his side.
Maverick shrugged. The room was mostly vacated and they were the last ones in it with Bastion. "I don't know! Something- something really fucking big maybe?" he asked, blinking down and driving more HE slugs into Bastion's helm. They did little to stop her but slowed by the ice as she was, it did enough to disorientate her.
Winter glanced round frantically. Maybe…
"Her weapon. It shocked the Deathstalker didn't it?" She spotted it lying discarded on the floor as Bastion started hammering one of the pillars holding their balcony up, two swift fist strikes reducing it to powder. "But I don't think any of us are strong enough to lift that thing."
"I could." Slade gritted his teeth. "I could use my Semblance. Enough of me should be able to. Maverick can aim it."
"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA, YOU DO NOT JUST GO USING WEAPONS WITHOUT THEIR OWNER'S PERMISSION!" Maverick shouted back at them. So maybe the dumbass did have a slight sense of honour.
"Only option. I used the last of my lightning dust doing… something." She wasn't sure how common time manipulation was, but her timestop on Helia's wing seemed like a good thing to not reveal at this moment.
Maverick was about to argue, but instead he sidestepped a shield being flung at him like a bladed wall of death. "Although I guess we could make a small exception - but just this once!" he yelled, blinking over to grab the discarded sword. He pulled on it for a moment, grunting. "HOLY SHIT WHAT DOES THIS THING WEIGH?!"
Bastion roared, turning to charge at him. Whatever enhanced her speed was gone - but she wasn't slow on her own. Maverick barely blinked away, taking the sword with him to the other side of the room before disappearing.
He popped back into existence between Slade and Winter, leaning on a pillar and looking like he'd just run a marathon.
"I'll give you covering fire." Winter cricked her neck, pulling more vials from her pouch. "Slade, go with him, grab the sword. Maverick, until he gets it, we'll need to juggle her attention. Got it?"
Maverick panted for a moment, nodding. "Heh, yeah. Damn, haven't blinked that much since ever," he mumbled, looking at his hands. They were shaking. A lot. "Right, distraction…"
Slade slapped him on the shoulder. "Fight the berserker now, panic later, alright? We've got you."
"Okay, okay," Maverick breathed, before pulling a large revolver out of his holster - how many guns does he have in there?! - and handing it to Winter. "Don't break it, Ice Queen. Screamer flares. Six shots," he told her, grabbing Slade's shoulder and blinking the pair down to where Bastion was fending off several bravened Charlie Stream members.
Winter rolled the revolver's cylinder, sighted down it. She preferred her dust, but indubitably it'd be useful. Hm, what was that tickling feeling on her arm, like something slithering up -
A prick, like a needle. Two needles, pressed into her arm. She looked down to see a snake withdrawing its fangs from two neat holes in her upper arm. It hissed at her.
"Oh," she said, and fell over.
She could hear Maverick screaming something. Could hear Bastion roaring. But that didn't seem to matter as much as the colours creeping across her vision, in black and white and shades of grey.
A high heeled boot stepped into view, and a dark haired girl crouched down, picking up the snake. "Well, that was easier than I thought it'd be. I really have to thank you for your arrogance in thinking a frumpy parka would make you unrecognisable." The snake clambered higher on her arm. "Don't worry, you won't die. Apep has two sets of venom sacs, and I removed his lethal ones a long time ago. But the hallucinogens - well. I kept them. Made a lot of pocket money at school from selling them." She stood, and Winter thrashed as the colours swirled and grew. "Have fun, Winter Schnee."
Winter felt her lungs seize up as all noise seemed to cease. A little bubble of her own world with this insane girl. The girl frowned.
"Ash, quit it. You know why I'm doing this. Why she deserves - " She saw something at Winter's feet and her eyes widened. Winter couldn't tell what it was - there was too much in her eyes, too much happening, but she thought it looked like the guitar girl Mav had been carrying lying down like she was.
Her attacker backed up as several knives floated over Winter almost protectively, twisting and twirling in the air in a way that would have made Winter concerned for their owner's mental state had she been sober. Snake girl turned to get away - and found herself bodily heaved right back at Winter, at the knives.
"That wasn't very nice," a small voice hissed at her. Winter couldn't turn her head enough to see, but she sounded small. Viscious. The knives split, and then split again. Until the air was filled with swirling feather-sized blades. All in silence.
"You should understand." The girl's voice was small too, but in a different way. "Of anyone here, you should understand."
"If you want to escalate, I can too."
The knives started flying, something locking snake-girl in place at the bladestorm ravaged her, draining her aura scarily quick. Her screaming turned to whimpering as her aura shattered, several lacerations appearing over her body, her snake hissing and flailing one almost dived right into it's throat.
And then it stopped.
Winter blinked, her head lolling as she watched.
Snake-girl opened her eyes to find an eyelash or two cut off by how close- and how sharp- the knives were. She was completely locked in place, as far as Winter could tell.
"Please. Please don't kill Apep he was just obeying my instructions. Please."
Helia regarded her coldly as a single knife backed out of the snake's mouth. "How far were you going to go? Kill her? Addict her? Get her expelled?" The knives twirled, coming ever so close to blinding her. "If you really want oppression to end, you aren't going to do it by bringing the wrath of a grieving Schnee down on your head, or mine, or the Faunus of the world."
The sound barrier broke and snake-girl panted sobbing breaths of relief as the knives retracted before she was unceremoniously flung shrieking over the balcony railing with her snake.
Winter didn't know what was going on, but Helia looked small and fluffy and angry and sad. She extended her arms - or maybe her legs, everything felt funny, and firmly shouted, "Cuddles!"
Helia sighed. Then she started giggling. And finally laughed as her knives flew into formation to cover her broken wing. "Yes. Time for cuddles," she smiled, crawling over to lie on top of Winter's prone body and be cuddled.
-.-.-
R&R? We'd love to hear from you. The good, the bad, everything and anything that stood out. :)
~Angel and Hel~