Queen's Mistake
A/N: Now we get to the good stuff. We are fast approaching the moment that Team MSTT forms and takes the world by storm. We've also hit a minor milestone of 10 official chapters, which is exciting on its own.
A/N/N: Sorry for the long delay, we're just experiencing "technical difficulties" over in the editing and beta-reading centre.
Please remember to review and follow if you enjoy.
Present Day…
The first-person-perspective video that was playing on the holo-screen eventually ended with T and the others inside their Bullhead as it flew away from the old Lazuli Stronghold. The video stopped short of the fortress exploding from within – the fire and clouds of smoke spreading outwards from the central tower structure.
When the projector deactivated, Glynda let out a sigh. "Well, at least that explains what happened to that stronghold."
"I couldn't sleep at all that night." Mason muttered to himself, catching almost everyone in the room by surprise.
"Did you really feel that bad about it?" Jay asked with a sympathetic frown. This is very unlike Mason, unless-
"Nah bro, I was harder than ever." Of course. SK thought as he rolled his eyes. Everyone in the room shared a similar expression. "I couldn't sleep at all because I was-"
"Too much information!" Tanner yelled out, cutting Mason off. "Shut the fuck up!"
The room fell silent for a moment as the loose furniture shook with a thunderous vibration that seemed to come from everywhere. The rogue knew that it was just the battle being fought in Vale's streets to reclaim territory from the Grimm. So far from home, yet he could still understand these people's struggle.
The silence was eventually broken by Qrow's husky voice. "Well, I suppose you'll have to answer for what you did back there to the Mistralian government. Abandoned or not, that stronghold is-was Mistralian property."
"Qrow, we-" T tried to reason, but Qrow cut him off again.
"However, considering that we have no way to contact Mistral, and the fact that the stronghold was taken over by a terrorist group, I'd say we could let this one slide." He said with a growing smirk as he turned to the blonde woman. "What do you think, Glynda?"
"I suppose we can let this one slide." She said with a huff. "But they still have a lot to answer for."
"You've got to hear us out first." Tanner joined in the conversation. "We're on your side, Goodwitch – believe it or not."
"That's still to be debated." Jay breathed out before turning his attention to SK. "You practically walked out on the team back there – walked out on this…whatever this is." He said as he gestured towards the blank holo-screen. "What made you change your mind?"
The black-haired teen turned away to let out a sigh before responding. "After a few more run-ins with them, I realised…" he said the last three words so quietly, not even Mason – with his enhanced Faunus hearing – could hear them.
"What was that?" Tanner asked in a sing-song voice, a wide grin plastered on his face.
"I was wrong! Ok, I was wrong about you, about T, about the Maidens…still not sure about Neo, but you get the idea." SK confessed quickly.
"Well, to be fair none of us really believe in them either." Qrow said, probably trying to appeal to the black-haired teen's ingrained sense of justice.
"Yet."
"Hey, what about me?" Mason whined.
"Oh, I was wrong about you too." SK spoke in a bitter tone. "You're far worse than the rumours make you out to be."
"Thank you."
"Let's not get side-tracked." Jay reminded. "I want to know what happened next."
Mason had already opened his mouth and was getting ready to speak, when Qrow cut him off. "Slow down, kid. First off I want to know more about this…Gambit Protocol."
"What else is there to know; it's like a Blacklist." Tanner said as he idly tied his glowing scarf around his neck – no one speaking up to stop him.
"Stop calling it that." T spat in a low voice.
"Why not, they're almost the fucking same thing." Tanner countered.
"Almost being the key word." T said as he tapped several lights that appeared across the shiny-black table, causing several digital files to open up. As if the files were real, the hacker flung them across the table towards Qrow and Glynda. "The majority of people on the sharp-end of the Gambit Protocol were designated as Pawns; expendable assets that didn't know too much about what Cinder was planning and could only be traced back to people like Roman Torchwick and the White Fang. Mercenaries, thieves, smugglers, gunmen, even if they were hired by Cinder herself, if they were a part of Gambit Protocol, they could only be traced back as far as Torchwick – at best."
"Not anymore they can't." Jay muttered under his breath, unconsciously. However, the comment didn't go unnoticed.
"What do you mean, 'not anymore'?" SK inquired, seeming to snap the blonde boy out of his daze. He looked fearfully at Qrow like the older man was going to be angry with him for letting the comment slip, but Qrow just looked on with a neutral expression at the teen before sighing.
"Y'know, your father had trouble keeping things to himself as well." Qrow commented. "It's what made him dangerous. What Jay's talking about is that Roman Torchwick died during the Grimm invasion."
SK couldn't believe what he heard at first, but looking at the shocked expressions about his teammates, he knew he had heard right. A wave of enthusiasm washed over him, following the shock of the revelation as a wide smile stretched across his face.
T seemed to be wearing a similar – if not more reserved – expression on what he could see of his face, while Mason didn't seem to care too much. The only person that seemed to really stand out among them was Tanner.
His face looked torn between forlorn and relieved, which was understandable from what SK had learned about him. Although, it did little to dampen his ecstatic mood.
"Are you sure?" Tanner finally asked as he stood out of his chair, though his voice was wavering like it would either break or harden at a moment's notice.
"Well, if you trust Ruby's word for it; the bastard was eaten by a Griffon." Qrow explained while SK was having an internal celebration of the hand Oum had dealt against the man. After trying to kill the orange-haired gangster for so long, it felt good to know that he was finally gone.
The brunette swordsman let out a sigh as he sat back down. "Well, good riddance I guess." He muttered, though his voice sounded more sure this time.
"We know you were close to him, and that he protected you when you were younger, so we extend our condolences – if means anything." Glynda tried to comfort Tanner, but the rogue knew that Tanner would just push it away.
"You don't have to pity me, he was in league with a monster; it had to be done." Tanner spoke, but he did not look the professor in the eye.
"Very well." She said as she turned towards T. "You may continue."
With a nod, T went on. "Supposedly, Cinder created Gambit Protocol shortly after I turned against her to prevent more 'Pawns' from turning or becoming a loose-end once they outlived their usefulness."
"Who decided which 'Pawn' was no longer useful, then?" Qrow questioned further.
"Cinder always had the final word in who was no longer useful, and she alone had the clearance to flip the switch on their protocols."
"Was anyone on the list spared?" Glynda asked, sounding slightly hopeful for some reason.
"Spared willingly, no. However, after we got word out to the people on the list that they were on death-row, they were more than happy to turn their backs on Cinder." Tanner explained. "Many were hunted down – most didn't make it, but I couldn't care less if any actually got away from the bitch."
"So how were people on this Blacklist chosen?" Jay asked, which caused Tanner to jump out of his seat.
"See! It's not just me! He called it a Blacklist too!" Tanner shouted at T as he pointed at the stunned blonde boy.
"You can call it whatever you want." T said, his voice slowly rising. "You can call it a Blacklist, you can call it Hummingbird, you can fucking call it Order 66 and I still couldn't give a shit! The point is that it worked," he spoke as he slowly sank back into his chair. "-until we stopped it."
There was a silence that lasted two whole seconds before Qrow spoke up again. "And how did you stop it?"
Roughly three months before Volume 1…
"Are you fucking mental!" Tanner shouted over the holographic display of the Sapphire Stronghold at Mason. "That would kill us all!"
At the outburst, the redhead just shrugged before replying with, "You said you wanted to neutralize the White Fang scrubs in the fortress, you never said you had to survive."
"I'm sorry, dick-for-brains, but I usually like to come back from a hostile takeover mission!" Tanner retorted. "Anyway, we can't detonate a nuclear warhead so close to the Kingdom; the radiation would kill several of the civilians – not to mention the villagers around the damn fort!"
"Well fuck the civilians!" Mason retorted back. "I'm in this for the revenge and piles of dead orphan children!"
"Enough!" T's loud voice had an echo effect as it bounced around with the aid of several loudspeakers placed around the table that had been set up in front of his desk of computers. "Now, let's go over what we know."
"Sapphire Stronghold is an old war-time fortress. Since then, a village has slowly grown around the fortress which used to use the fortress as their town centre until the White Fang moved in." T explained as little holographic notes and details appeared above several spots on the holo-map. "According to several dispatched drones and information gathered by Tanner, the people living in the village are in some sort of agreement with the Fang to leave each other alone. This doesn't mean we can just bombard the fortress and the village with warheads."
"Aww, then what did I spend all my time building this for?" Mason whined as he hefted the nuclear warhead in one hand.
"Please put that away. I don't want to die today – let alone by a stupid misfire from your fucking bomb." Tanner groaned.
"It won't go off; whoever built it did a shoddy job." T remarked after taking one glance at the explosive.
This remark caused the redhead to gasp in mock-hurt as he clutched the bomb close to his chest. "How dare you! Don't listen to the big dumb man." He said, cooing the explosive. "Daddy will always love you."
Tanner rolled his orange-coloured eyes at the mad berserker. "A murderer and a defective son; what a lovely family." He muttered.
"Hey, he is not defective!" Mason shot back. "I'll show you." He said as he primed the trigger on the device.
The dark brunette instantly went from judgemental to fearful for his life in a matter of milliseconds as he began to take a few stumbled steps backwards. "Don't you dare!"
It was too late, though, as Mason slammed down on the trigger. Tanner could feel all the blood and colour draining from his…everything as he curled and shielded his face from the explosion – for whatever good that would do.
Two whole seconds passed by and there was still no white-hot, searing flame to engulf him and disintegrate him off the face of Remnant. Slowly, he opened one eye to peer through the cracks of his fingers. His sense of hearing recovered from the shock of the moment just in time to hear the redhead mash the button several times.
"Why isn't it working?" he grumbled as he slammed his fist on the button several times.
"You can't detonate a bomb without the explosives." T remarked as he raised a cylindrical canister from behind his side of the table. Tanner also noted that throughout the whole incident, T barely showed any emotion or expressions even remotely similar to what Tanner had gone through. The son of a bitch knew…
For a moment, Mason's expression was stuck on bewilderment before it turned into anger. "Did you tamper with my baby?"
"I believe I did. But that's past the point." The cyborg said as he rolled the canister across the table and back to Mason. "Nothing that can cause mass-damage; I still need to find out if the servers are working with a closed server wired to any other fortresses."
"You can find out from their charred remains." The redhead grumbled.
"No, because by then it will be too late." T's voice rose in tone. "I need to find out if the servers are connected, so that I can send a virus through the servers to infect the others."
"And we can't just go barging in there without properly knowing what they have in store for us." Tanner followed up. "So the real question is; what's wrong with your drones?"
"There's nothing 'wrong with my drones'." The cyborg bit back, pulling the mask around his mouth down. "Something is just interfering with the signal that's preventing me from flying them over the base."
"Can't you just…I don't know, hack around the interference?" Tanner suggested half-heartedly. In truth, he knew only the basics about performing reconnaissance. More often than not, he would either bribe or pry the information out of one who knew the layout of the building.
The question caused T to pause in his pacing to stare at Tanner with a deadpanned look. "That is the stupidest suggestion I've ever heard of?"
The rebuke brushed Tanner the wrong way and his face immediately turned into a scowl. "Well then what do you suppose we do, since you're so fucking smart?"
"This is why we needed that rogue; he would've been able to sneak in and out of the base and provide us with a layout. However, since we are on our own, we have to do our own close-up recon of the area."
The swordsman was confused for a moment as he cleared his throat to get the cyborg's attention. "Um, what the hell have I been doing for the past two hours then?"
"We don't just need a background check of the fortress and the Fang, we need to actually get into the fortress and see what they have in store for intruders…or in our case-"
"Renovators." Mason finished for him, causing everyone to send the redhead berserker strange looks. "What? That's essentially what we're doing."
Tanner couldn't even put in the effort to make another snide remark. Having not slept for whole day took more out of him than he thought, especially since he was constantly active.
"Overwatch, is the airship prepped for launch?" T asked, the question seeming to be directed towards the ceiling.
"Yes, Captain Ásta-yes, Captain. She's all fuelled up and ready for take-off." A smooth, feminine voice replied. Not for the first time today, hearing the disembodied voice echo through the rooms of the apartment made Tanner jump slightly.
Even after having lived in the apartment for several weeks and hearing Overwatch on a daily basis, it still spooked the swordsman in a manner he couldn't express with words.
"Perform pre-flight checks and have the airship ready in five minutes." T ordered as he deactivated the holographic projector on his smooth, polished, wooden table with his Scroll.
"At my processing power, I'll still have enough time to make myself a soufflé while contemplating the nature of the Grimm." Overwatch quipped in response before the dim lights of the apartment slowly got brighter.
Without another word, T walked off to one of the rooms he had strictly laid out as 'off-limits' to both Tanner and Mason – leaving the swordsman very much confused as to what he was supposed to be doing. Punching the passcode to the number-pad on the side of the door, the brunette was able to bring his mind to the present just as the cyborg was about to shut the door behind him.
"Hey, what are we supposed to do?" he asked, causing T to pause in his motion.
There was a point in time that Tanner wasn't sure whether or not the cyborg would actually answer his question – as Tanner still had a long list of unanswered questions because of the man's stoic nature, but he huffed internally with relief as T turned his head to face him.
"Go to the armoury, help yourself to the ammunition, and be ready in five minutes…and make sure Mason doesn't detonate that bomb." Was all T said before slamming the door shut, where locks and magnets could be heard locking into place.
Mason felt cheated out of his deal.
When the guy with the metal arm said that they have a gunship, he failed to elaborate upon the fact that he wasn't allowed to pilot said gunship.
But man, it was a sweet gunship.
With twin chainguns mounted on either side of the nose of the airship and four pod-missile launchers on either wing, the metal bird of destruction could easily level a city block with one salvo. And – as what Mason would consider the cherry on top of this cake of death and desolation, a retractable machine gun mount was concealed on either side of the airship to fire out of the hatches on the sides of the airship.
Yes, it was a sweet gunship, though it would be a lot sweeter if he wasn't confined to one of the foldable passenger seats in a 'time-out' fashion while the pimp with the gay scarf constantly kept an eye on him.
"What's our ETA?" Tanner shouted, directing the sound of his voice to the cockpit with his hand while never taking his eyes off Mason.
"Our estimated time of arrival is, three minutes." The digital female voice replied from one of the speakers mounted on the walls of the airship.
"Thank you." The swordsman quickly responded awkwardly while glancing down at the sword on his lap. From the tight look on Tanner's face, the redhead berserker had a rough idea of what he was thinking of. The stone-hard look in his eyes and the way the skin on his face tightened meant that he could only be thinking of one thing.
"Thinking about your bitch?" Mason inquired with an offhand tone.
The question caused the brunette's head to snap to attention. "What?"
"I know that look." Mason explained with a growing smirk. "I've seen it before; mostly when dinner's thinking about their bitch right before I tear them limb from limb."
Closing his eyes for a moment, Tanner looked as if he were about to retort as his grip on the hilt of his sword tightened. However, after closing and opening his mouth twice, he finally responded with a simple, "Please shut up."
Ooh, feisty. "Soo, tell me; what's she like?" Mason inquired while leaning forward on his hands slightly, causing the brunette to lean backwards.
"I said, shut up." He replied with a cold glare.
"Was she tasty?"
Without warning, Tanner got up out of his seat and set his sabre against the hull of the airship while quickly approaching the berserker. "What fucking part about 'shut up' do you not get? Are you brain-dead or something you stupid piece of shit?"
Acting completely unfazed by the swordsman's sudden outburst, Mason simply shrugged his shoulders. "Just wanted to know a little about your slut." He said in a tone that made it sound like he was the one who had been offended.
That seemed to be Tanner's tipping point, as he picked Mason up with a clump of his ginger afro in one hand and the leather strap of his armour in the other. "Call her that one more time and I swear I'll-"
"Enough."
Tanner's shouting quickly died down at the sound of T's voice and footsteps as he walked into the passenger compartment of the airship. The cyborg had a hand on his holster and was carefully eyeing the situation to assess whether or not it would escalate to fighting. Or, at least that was Mason's best guess at what that look meant.
"Put him down, Vermillion." He ordered, which Tanner only complied to after a few seconds passed. It took a few seconds more for the swordsman to rip his hands away from the redhead.
"Ow, easy on the hair." Mason grumbled as Tanner let go.
"We've arrived." T continued just as he felt the Bullhead rock slightly from landing. The hatches of the airship slid apart a split second later to reveal that they had landed in a forest clearing.
Without another word, Tanner stormed out of the airship, making sure to stomp louder than necessary as he stepped off the VTOL.
"Sheesh, sensitive much?" Mason asked T, who didn't offer much in reply.
"You remember what you're supposed to do?" the cyborg asked Mason in return, completely ignoring the argument that had occurred.
"Yeah, yeah, I got it. I stand and guard the ship while you two lovebirds go and do whatever until you give the order to attack, blah blah blah." Mason droned while waving his hand dismissively.
"This is important." T continued, his tone taking a serious tone. "This airship is our ace-in-the-hole if things don't go as planned. It's our evacuation and aerial support, making it imperative that we do not lose it."
"Don't worry, no one's going to be blowing up this bad boy while I'm guarding 'im." The redhead reassured as he patted the side of the Bullhead.
"Alright. Radio in if there's any trouble." T concluded as he pulled a lever on the wall of the ship to deploy one of the machine-gun mounts by the hatch. "Use this if you have to. It's a 'she', by the way." He reminded as he stepped off the airship and followed in the direction Tanner went.
Now that everyone else was gone, Mason cracked his knuckles as he shifted over to the cockpit. Getting down on his knees, he began pulling back a panel to reveal a mesh of wires, licking his lips in anticipation.
T hadn't really meant most of what he had said to the cannibal back there. If anything, the ship-board intelligence was a more competent pilot and gunner than any Human or Faunus – and would keep a sharp eye on the redhead. He just needed an excuse to keep Mason out of trouble until they needed him to storm the stronghold.
His next concern was Tanner and his confrontation with the cannibal back on his Bullhead. Just from the profile he had been able to compile of the swordsman, T knew that it was going to be a challenge for the two of them to work together. His calculated thinking would no doubt clash with Tanner's passionate and emotive thinking, but T knew that he could deal with it when the time came – one way or another.
It didn't take long for the hacker to find the Atlas-born brunette, as he left a trail of charred flora and embers in his wake. In the low light of that evening, T clearly spotted the swordsman out by his burning scarf. At least we're headed towards the fortress…
"Stop." He exclaimed firmly just as Tanner kicked a broken branch out of his way. At the sound of his voice, the brunette quickly turned to face T and marched right in front of him.
"Out of all the fucking lunatics at that stronghold, why the fucking hell did we take him with us?" T noticed that Tanner's Aura was starting to flare and it showed in the form of the increase in cinders that fell from his scarf.
"I know you're angry, but-"
"Angry? Don't start with me about angry! I've had to put up with that psycho's shit for the past week!" he began ranting. "He smells, leaves a mess of the place, and don't even get me started with how he breaks into my room and uses my stuff. I was willing to let it all slide, but he does not talk about Hannah like she's just some kind of street whore!" by then end of his angry shouting, Tanner's voice finally cracked and he had to swallow hard to fight back against the emotions underneath the surface of his skin.
Deep down, some part of T wanted to sympathise with the swordsman just for how dedicated he was to that girl, but he didn't have time for petty squabbles or the brat's attitude with so much at stake. "You wanted to kill Adam; this is what we've got to do to force him out into the open. Now, if you don't think you're up for keeping a low profile, then you better go back to guarding the ship with Mars." T said, giving his ultimatum.
Tanner was silent for a moment before he spoke again, in a calmer voice this time. "She meant the world to me, and I loved her, so you can be damned sure I'm going to kill the son of a bitch that killed her. But I also won't take any shit talk directed at her from anyone, clear?"
"Are you with me, or not?" T hissed in reply. I really don't have time for this.
Anger flared in Tanner's eyes for a moment before dying down to a few cinders, much like the scarf wrapped around his neck. "Fine." He grumbled through gritted teeth. "Let's just go do this so I can get a coffee or something." Without another word, he turned around on his heel and began marching towards the fortress, just barely visible above the trees. Sighing internally, T followed closely behind him.
It took a solid six minutes of walking for them to reach the borders of the village, and another two minutes to get close enough to Sapphire Stronghold. The villagers didn't offer much in ways of greeting, but they didn't inquire too much about the two new visitors either.
They hid a safe distance away in the shadow of one of the buildings close to the fortress. This was different, however. Unlike Fort Lazuli, this stronghold was more like a castle and was built to outlast sieges instead of fight against them, designed with several rooms to store supplies and vantage points to wear out their attackers. On top of that, going on the offensive meant that they were going to have to fight a literal uphill battle.
In his mind, T already had a schematic of the stronghold's layout, but it was outdated and didn't account for any renovations the White Fang may have done in the time since they took over.
"See anything I don't?" Tanner asked as he lowered his binoculars from his face. With one hand over his Human eye, T focussed his tunnel vision on certain spots of activity along the wall of the stronghold – carefully watching White Fang goons carry out their business. However, because of the design of the castle, not much could be seen beyond the concrete walls that made up the fortress.
"Depends. What do you see?" T responded as he lowered his hand to his side.
"Well, aside from a few Faunus extremists chatting and carrying about heavy Dust-based weaponry, not much. You?" Tanner spoke in a casual tone of voice as he took a moment to lean against the wall of the hut they were hiding behind.
They were getting nowhere with this, and T recognized it. "We need to get a closer look." He spoke up as he took a few steps forward. He was almost out of the evening shadow of the building when a familiar voice froze him in his tracks.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
For the first time in a while, the hacker found himself getting caught off-guard as he spun around in surprised as the familiar rogue materialised out of thin air.
Arms folded with a tired look in his eyes, he stared directly at T, who returned the look in earnest. Tanner was initially startled by SK's sudden appearance, but quickly calmed down.
'Where the fuck did you come from?" Tanner was quick to ask as one of his hands flew to the hilt of his pistol.
However, as T pinpointed the black-haired teen's Scroll signature, he noticed that he had been following them for quite a while. Since their encounter at Fort Lazuli, SK did something to his Scroll that purged it of the tracking software T had hidden in the deep layers of the device's protocol, and the hacker had been unable to track him.
"More importantly, how long have you been following us?" T followed up Tanner's question with his own, keeping his hands at his sides.
Shrugging his shoulders, the rogue moved to lean with one hand against the wooden hut. "I saw you two enter the village."
"I'm guessing you're after the list too?" The hacker inquired further, already knowing why SK was here. It wasn't because he was after the list of 'Pawns' or even because this was a convenient start to his revenge ploy against Cinder.
It was because he had nowhere else to start from.
"Maybe." He replied as he pushed off the wall of the hut. "Look, since our last meeting I've had some time to think…and I guess it only makes sense to work with you – since we're going after the same person."
He's not going to elaborate further. T thought to himself as he formulated his response. "Sorry, job offer's closed."
That caught SK's attention as his eyes widened and his glasses slid down his face slightly. Even Tanner had a look of surprise on his face; reasonable considering how T mentioned several times that the rogue would eventually come around.
The shocked look on SK's face quickly faded, to be replaced by an irritated scowl. "You're joking, right?"
"I asked for your help and you refused. We don't need you anymore." He said, with every intention of leading the rogue on until he got exactly what he wanted without having to ask.
"It didn't sound like that a moment ago."
"We can do our own scouting from here on out." Tanner chipped in. T smiled internally as the swordsman seemed to be catching on to what he was doing. "Might be a little more tricky, but we'll manage. Thanks."
"You haven't been inside the fortress yet. I have." He raised his voice slightly as his expression became very stern. "Trust me; you won't last ten minutes against them without my help."
"Try me."
There was a momentary pause as SK chewed on his lower lip. For a split second, T became worried that the black-haired boy actually wouldn't give up the information, but that was before he opened up his mouth.
"They have an invisible force field covering the entire stronghold at all times." He explained. "The damn thing will protect that castle from just about anything. It's backed up by a short-range signal jammer that interferes with most Scrolls and Android signals. Along with that, the Fang's taken extra precaution to bury several splinter mines around the base. I can point out the hotspots where we're most likely to step on one and lose a limb. To top it all off, they've got several anti-aircraft turrets hidden behind some of the walls…does anyone have a map or something?"
At his request, T pulled out one of the holographic projectors he hid under his coat and dropped it on the floor. Once it hit the ground, it displayed a three-dimensional scale diagram of the castle. With it, SK was able to point out where the terrorists most often gathered, where they kept their weapons and ammunition, the areas of land around the castle with hidden splinter mines and where the anti-aircraft turrets were located.
When the projector deactivated, T spoke as he bent down to pick it up. "First order of duty is to take out the shield generator."
"I can handle that. I just need to get behind the shield." SK spoke up as his right hand found its way to the hilt of his scimitar. "What else?"
"We'll first need to reconvene at the Bullhead and come up with a more thorough plan. Once the shield generator's down, I can have the airship run strategic bombing runs to eliminate large pockets of Fang soldiers and weapon depots. However, we need to be careful not to damage the servers under the castle."
"How long do you think this'll take?" Tanner asked, sounding slightly irritated.
"Hopefully we'll be done planning within the hour."
Tanner opened up his mouth to speak again, but the roar of engines and explosions cut him off as all three turned in horror to see their Bullhead flying in low for a bombing run on the village, before continuing the barrage of missiles all the way to the stronghold.
"Incoming!" SK yelled as he dodged to one side. T followed right behind him as a shock missile landed directly into the hut they were hiding behind and blew it into a shower of splinters.
The ringing in his ears quickly died down as he watched in a mixture of rage and horror as his airship's missiles exploded harmlessly against the dome of energy around the castle, while the occupants were clear to fire heavy calibre rounds at the Bullhead as it banked away.
T was the first to get back on his feet as he looked for Tanner while SK collected himself. Finding the swordsman unharmed – though equally dazed, he offered him a hand up as he spoke.
"Or we could just come up with the plan along the way!"