Chapter 31
Several days passed without incident. Twice a day, Winter, Weiss, Neo, and Ozpin met in the Headmaster's office. They were occasionally joined by Goodwitch or Ironwood, but not always. And, rarely did the information change: sporadic sightings of Cinder or her associates in Vale near to the Academy, but not on the campus itself. Ozpin warned that their effort to lay low could be an indication of her faction gearing up for a final press and they should be even more on guard now than before.
All around them though, life continued as normal. The Vytal Festival was solidly in the quarter-finals round, and classes marched along towards exams and the end of the semester. A number of Team RWBY and Team JNPR members found it odd that no one else seemed to be on alert or on guard, despite their involvement in a fairly high-stakes mission. The juxtaposition of their high-strung state of readiness clashed with the much more easy-going, free-spirited environment surrounding the festival. Fortunately, the visitors, public, and students were all too wrapped up in the excitement of the festival to notice a handful of Huntsmen and Huntresses at a heightened state of alert.
Weiss and Neo were constantly on edge and it began to take a toll on the pair. Winter, however, seemed in her element and accustomed to operating at an elevated stress level.
To complicate matters, Weiss started to worry that Jaune and Ruby have let their guard slip since there was no steady action, just observation and awareness.
On Wednesday afternoon, Ruby and Jaune were called into Ozpin's office and told that their field trip over the weekend was going to be canceled. Instead, they were going to join with one of Ironwood's commando units and try to hunt her down, if Cinder hadn't attacked by midday on Friday. As he finished giving the team leaders their orders, Ozpin sternly warned them that they were not to tell their team any of this information, just that 'Ozpin is waiting to give us our assignment for the weekend'."
Thursday started out in much the same way every other day that week had. Early breakfast as a group, fight to stay awake for Professor Port's lecture, and fight the boredom while watching their classmates fight in Goodwitch's class. Glynda didn't allow them to spar, as she tried to keep RWBY and JNPR fresh in case Cinder attacked.
After class, the nine members of RWBY and JNPR discussed some of the more unique strategies they just witnessed as they made their way towards the dining hall for lunch. Less than halfway there, they heard a series of explosions saw smoke pouring from one of the engines keeping Amity afloat. As the Colosseum was designed to remain aloft with multiple engine failures, a single destroyed engine wasn't enough to bring it down; something an attacker would be aware of. But when there were no more explosions, Weiss turned to her teammates and suggested that it was a distraction to clear everyone else out.
The combined teams nodded their agreement with the heiress's assessment as they saw the Atlesian fleet rapidly depart Beacon, along with a rush of students and Huntsmen.
"At least they'll be safe from whatever is about to happen here." Weiss commented dryly. "Brace yourselves, she's coming…"
Sirens wailed as Weiss finished her statement. Nora fell to her knees at the sound; hands clutched her ears as she begged for the sound to stop. Ren tried to comfort her as their teammates drew their weapons and shields to guard the two. Weiss drew Myrtenaster while Ruby unfolded Crescent Rose and Blake slapped a magazine home into Gambol Shroud as Yang cocked Ember Celica.
They scanned the ground as well as the skies, knowing Cinder's faction to have access to Bullheads. Nearly a dozen Bullheads screamed in, low to the ground and darted over Beacon's walls at the last possible moment; a military maneuver. At first, Weiss relaxed her guard as she thought the well executed maneuver was the work of the Atlesian Air Fleet, but the sight of the Bullheads unloading their full complements of White Fang operatives, jumping and rappelling towards the ground, made her realize just how much trouble they were in.
With a silent curse, Weiss tapped out an incredibly fast message and mashed the send button.
*- Coco, we need your BFG in the quad by the dining hall. NOW!
Weiss shouted to her companions as she stuffed her scroll away, "How are we going to do this?"
Blake was first to reply, "If they are coming towards you aggressively, kill them."
The first White Fang member had barely hit the ground when Ruby fired a round from Crescent Rose to launch herself at him. With a simple windmill-like spin, she decapitated him and fired another round, hurtling herself into a pack of Fang operatives.
Weiss activated her glyphs and began skating across the ground, enemies impaled as they landed. As she attacked, she cast defensive glyphs far more frequently than she generally considered prudent to try to protect herself and her teammates as best she could from the barrage of incoming gunfire.
Yang swung from the end of Gambol Shroud's ribbon, trying to deal some damage to the troops on the ground as Blake gathered momentum to launch the girl up towards an incoming Bullhead. At the apex of Blake's swing, Yang fired both gauntlets as she launched herself at a Bullhead and crashed through the windshield. As she fired a double shot and smashed through the lexan windscreen, Yang mercilessly unloaded on the pilot, killing him and removing the aircraft's ability to stay airborne. The brawler rode the plane down, bailing right before it crashed into the ground, and threw herself, arms outstretched, into a cluster of Fang trying to chase down Jaune and Pyrrha.
Neo silently let fly a tirade of curses as she did her best to shield herself from an onslaught that made her realize she was the Fang's target for this incursion. Her lack of a strong ranged attack made things incredibly difficult for her to do anything other than defend herself. She needed to close the distance to get within hand-to-hand range. She reopened her parasol and charged at the closest enemy she could find. Neo launched herself at the deer-antlered Faunus woman with a double front kick; the second kick was used to push off and flip backwards. With a flash, Neo teleported to above the woman and crashed down on top of her head, narrowly avoiding the woman's antlers and dug her heal into the soft flesh of the neck, ripping a spurting gash into the artery beneath. The woman crashed to the ground, lifeless and limp, under Neo's assault.
Neo sized up her options and decided to burn the aura needed to teleport again. With another Death-From-Above attack, she came down on top of two White Fang operatives. One took the business end of her parasol directly to the temple; he was dead before he hit the ground. The other collapsed under the weight of the small woman as she landed on his shoulders and pushed him to the ground, face down, underneath her. She grabbed the back of his head smashed it into the ground repeatedly until she felt his body go limp.
Bodies were literally piling up across the battlefield. Ruby appeared to have gotten past her aversion to killing people and did a fine job hacking off limbs and severing bodies while Weiss put her fencing skills to the test. Blake and Yang held their line pretty well.
Jaune careened through a crowd with his sword slashing wildly and his shield ran through is paces, deflecting what blows he could. Pyrrha's movement looked somewhat similar, except her accuracy was far better on the attack and her skillful shield work ensured she sustained little damage. Over her right shoulder, Nora batted White Fang members away two and three at a time with huge swings of Magnhild while Ren threw rounds downrange between some impressive acrobatic moves against anyone crazy enough to get within the ninja's range.
Regardless of how well it seemed to be going, Neo knew that the White Fang operatives they were fighting were nothing more than canon fodder to try to wear them out before Cinder and her lieutenants joined the battle.
Through the din of battle, Weiss projected her powerful singing voice and screamed out "HIT THE DECK!"
None from Team RWBY or Team JNPR asked any questions as they threw themselves to the ground. Weiss flew across the battlefield and tackled Neo to the ground as a sideways falling hail of rounds mowed down anything higher than waist-height to Coco. In a matter of seconds, the fight was over and the only sound was the barrels on Coco's minigun as it ran through its post-firing cool down.
"Hey Schnee! You call, I deliver."
Neo's eyes were wide at the sight of the fashion-forward model wielding what is, quite likely, the largest handheld gun she had ever seen. Yatsuhashi stood guard behind her, his gigantic blade at the ready.
The combatants rose to regroup as they expected another wave, but after several minutes, none arrived.
Before long, Ozpin and several others arrived on scene and began to survey the damage.
"This must have been a preliminary attack. Probing. By detonating their explosives on Amity, they watched our reaction and sent in an expeditionary force to test the remaining defenses of Beacon. I am afraid to say, but this Cinder knows what she is doing." Came Winter's calculated, professional assessment.
"Children, are any of you hurt?" Goodwitch asked, she expected some serious injuries based on the sheer number of bodies that littered the grounds. The Huntsmen and Huntresses inspected their partners quickly and turned up nothing more serious than a couple of bruises and some moderate cuts. Glynda was legitimately surprised at how capably their defense was to pull off such an amazing feat.
"Glynda, I'm going to get a hold of Ironwood. Get Schnee, both of them, Miss Neopolitan and the three team leaders present up to my office. We're having a meeting in fifteen minutes."
"Right away, Professor. Alright, you heard him. Miss Schnee, Miss Schnee, Miss Neopolitan, Miss Rose, Mister Arc, and Miss Adel, you're all with me. Everyone else, group up and take up a defensive position on the ground level of Ozpin's tower. No one gets in to that building other than your teammates, is that understood?"
All heads present nodded briefly at her as they began a cautious procession through the killing field towards Ozpin's office.