AN: Welcome back to Earth Soldiers In Remnant! I am happy to say that this story will be continued. The reason for the delay was, as I found out only today, that my Java and other programs on my computer had not been updated since the start of 2014. (Whoops...). Anyway, enjoy the chapter.
Chapter 23: Hollow Road
The crackling of gunfire flew through the room, the room was concrete with a set of stalls on one side and everywhere else were a bunch of barricades with cardboard people popping out at random times. Each stall had a number above it, ranging from 1 to 12, and number 6 was occupied. Inside stood a man firing bullet after bullet the targets that popped up across the room. The man wore a white t-shirt and camouflaged trousers. This was what Keith did in the nights he had been having recently.
As the cracking of the gun stopped and the clicking of an empty-rounded pistol started, Keith sighed as he lowered the weapon. Since his and his squads, initiation into Beacon Academy, he had been having little to no sleep, round about 3 hours a night of sleep before waking up. He looked up to see the last target staring at him, almost mocking him that Keith couldn't finish it off.
Bang!
Keith, instinctively, ducked his head as he watched the target fall down, a bullet going into the centre of its head. "So this is where you've been hiding?" Keith turned to see Nick standing there with his standard issue side arm in his hands. "Want to talk about it?" Nick asked, clearly knowing what was troubling the Sergeant.
Keith slowly placed the pistol on the stall surface, his hands slightly shaking, and walked over to the back wall where a table with two chairs and a vending machine stood. He sat on the left side of the tabled and looked down towards the floor, not saying a word. Nick quickly took the free seat and stared at his commanding officer he had known for so long. "It's about him, isn't it?" Nick asked, when Keith lowered his head more, Nick knew he was right. "You know it wasn't your fault, right? No one could have seen that guy coming."
Suddenly, Keith's head twisted to face Nick, who noticed instantly that Keith's eyes were going a slight shade of purple under his eyes, most likely from lack of sleep. "But I should have, I was his Sergeant and I let him die, I should have sent Maddie or Derik to clear that building before we met up." He moved both his hands onto the table and quickly placed his head in them.
"And if you did, then Maddie or someone else could have died." Nick said "And I know if Jack saw you now, he would tell you to get out of this rut and live on." With this, he got up and walked around the table to Keith; he reached out his arm and held it towards him. "You ready to go back to living."
Silence seemed to reign for almost a minute before Keith moved and grasped Nick's hand. "Let's do this, for Jack."
"For Jack." Nick said as Keith stood up and the two walked back to their bunks, memories of Jack floating in their heads.
"Recon Aircraft are showing Faunus troops massing around the capital." A general of the Vale army stated. "They also seem to be massing around military installations as well." 15 higher-ups of the Vale military and intelligence agencies stood around a large table of the kingdom of Mistral.
"We should move on this, take some ground against them while they fortify their key points." Another general stated.
"If we do that, we could easily be thinned out too much." The first general said back. "And if we still don't know of the Grimm presences within the kingdom."
"We also don't have enough intelligence on our enemy, their numbers or weapon installations, for instance." Another general spoke, turning to the man next to him, the chief of the Vale Intelligence agency, or VI for short. "What has Vale Intelligence got for us?"
"Right now, we have nothing." The man said, his finger tapping the table. "We can't get any agents in or out at this moment. We will get back to you on that as soon as possible."
"We need that Intel now!" Another general yelled out in anger, this leading to a shouting match between almost all the higher-ups in the room.
"Why don't we just ask the Allied Forces for help?" Everyone turned towards a woman with long blonde curls in her hair and two large White rabbit ears sticking up from her head.
"Who are you?" One of the generals asked, his voice holding a little bit of venom because she was Faunus, the enemy they were fighting.
"Gentlemen, this is Abigail Reap, one of our top agents in Vale Intelligence." The head of VI stated, waving his arm towards Abigail. "Miss Reap, please speak your mind."
"I think we should get the Allied Forces to help us take down the enemy." She explained her voice calm yet her posture told the generals that she could kill them in an instant.
"We don't know if they could handle what the Faunus would throw at them." A general spoke.
"I was there when the first squad of them appeared, I watched as 8 of them held off the Grimm with very little problem, and we all saw what they did when the White Fang attacked Vale itself." She retorted, and the generals had to admit that they were quite strong as many civilians called them the 'Saviours of Vale' after the attack on the city.
"What makes you so sure that they will help us? When we visited them on one of their ships, they said, quite clearly, they were neutral."
"They need our help to get home, simple." Miss Reap stated. "We promise to help them get home and in return they help us face down our enemy." And with that the room went quite in contemplation, thinking of what strategic value their Allies would be.
"Why are we here again?" Derik asked as he, Ted and Daniel walked along one of Vales many streets with Team RWBY.
"Because, I need some more ammo and you, just so happen, to have offered to come with us." Weiss explained with a slightly annoyed tone.
"I blame Ted." Daniel explained as Ted looked at him like he had betrayed him.
"What did I do?" Ted asked as he threw his arms into the air.
"You wanted to come down here and see some of their tech, you machine-head." Derik off-handily mentioned without looking towards the pair, keeping his stare straight at Yang as she spoke to Blake.
Ted's face blushed in embarrassment as he looked down. He felt a hand land on his shoulder and looked up to see Daniel next to him. "its fine Ted, we'll look for some new clothes while you look at some… radio or something."
"I still don't understand how you people have only stayed in either your military uniform or the schools uniform." Ruby expressed as she turned towards the soldiers, who all just shrugged.
An hour later and Derik sat outside a changing room curtain as he waited for Daniel to try some clothes on. He looked down the changing room corridor to see Yang walk out in a nice dress, apparently because of another school dance coming up. She wore a strapless purple dress that ran down to her heels. Daniel looked at the girl in front of him. 'That's so…'He thought as he spoke the last word. "Beautiful." He stared towards her as she talked to Ruby.
"I don't think you were calling the dress beautiful, but the one wearing it." A voice whispered into his ear which caused Derik to jump into the air, turning to face Daniel behind him, smiling like a Cheshire cat. "And you know it's true."
"No I don't." Derik retorted back, becoming quickly defensive.
"That's not what your blushing face tells me." Derik blushed even more at the realization he was, in fact, blushing. Derik went to speak but Daniel put his left hand up, silencing him. "I won't tell her, but you better make your move before someone else take her away from you." He advised before walking away from Derik and headed towards the girls, Derik following after a few seconds of shock.
"Hey guys, come on. We're going to pay now!" Ruby said as she waved at them.
"How much longer are we on patrol?" Sam asked as she twiddled her thumbs in the back seat of the Hornet.
"We've got another two hours, at least." Dexter explained as he turned the Hornet to the left slightly. "Hornet 6-5, Hornet 6-6, this is Hornet 6-7, heading south, form up on me." Dexter ordered through the radio. Seconds later and the other two Hornets filed in into an arrowhead formation, with Dexter and Sam at the front.
Sam looked over her partner's seat and at him. "Hey, when we get back. Do you want to do-" Sam was cut off as bullets screamed past the cockpit and three Remnant fighters flew past. "Shit!" Sam cursed as she flipped her visor over her eyes.
"All Hornets break off and engage. I say again, engage at will." Dexter ordered as he banked the Hornet into a hard right. "Sam, get those weapon systems online NOW!"
"There on!" She replied as she began to look around into the air, attempting to locate one of their attackers. One flew past, its machine gun firing across their top. "One's heading right!"
"On it, try to get lock!" Dexter said as they got behind it.
"Hold her steady!" Sam exclaimed as she fired small bursts of bullets towards their attacker.
"I would if he'd stop turning!" Dexter roared in anger as the fighter they were following turned left. Dexter followed it until it stopped and flew straight. "Now!"
Sam pressed down on the button atop her joystick and bullets flew into the top of the enemy fighter, one catching its engine. With a giant 'BOOM', it exploded into pieces as it began to fall towards the ocean below them. "Woo!" Sam exclaimed as Dexter rested his head back onto his headrest.
"Ok, let's go and help the others." Dexter said as he turned them around and towards the others. The Hornet arced up into the clouds where they had left the others. "Hornet 6-5, this is Hornet 6-7. Have you taken out your fighter?" No response. "Hornet 6-5?" Again, no response, which caused the pair to begin to worry. As they reached the top they did get a response, but not from Hornet 6-5.
"This is Hornet 6-6, Hornet 6-5 is smoking black, there's too many!" A woman's voice yelled over the radio.
"Floor it!" Sam stated as Dexter pushed the Hornet to go faster through the cloud layer. As they breached the layer both their eyes went wide. "Oh no…"
In front of them were two Hornets fighting against 15 other fighters. One of the Hornets had black smoke coming from its back left engine. "We're going to need back-up…"
AN: So much stuff happened throughout this chapter. Nick talked to Keith about Jack, Daniel also talks to Derik about his feelings for Yang, and the cliffhanger at the end. So, what did you guys think? All criticism is advised and welcomed. And I would like to ask you guys a few questions.
1) What are your predictions on what will come in the story.
2) What couples would you see? (I will try my best to make romance, but know it might end horribly...)
I also have a competition for you all, who ever can tell me when we met Vale Intelligences top agent and who was the one to do it. Who ever finds it will be mentioned in the next chapters AN. Have a good day everyone,
Rookie117