Chp. 31: Attack On the Taliban Pt. 2

A few minutes had passed and the Taliban were stocking through their supplies. Up on a roof top of a three story building, Robert and May were both on their stomachs aiming their sniper rifles out at the Taliban.

"You ready?" Robert asked.

"Whenever you are. It's your call," May answered.

Robert and May each aimed their snipers at a Taliban soldier. Robert steadied his breathing for a moment and let out an exhale, and then pulled the trigger.

BANG!

The shot had just struck a Taliban trooper in the head, killing him. May fired a shot from her sniper rifle killing another trooper.

"شياطين!: Shayatinu! (Demons!)" one of the Taliban soldiers yelled out.

The Taliban was now on high alert and two of them on the truck mounted 50 caliber machine guns quickly spotted Robert and May and started shooting at them. The two young snipers ducked down in cover. Out from a corner of a building Elm steps out into the open with Timber in its rocket launcher form and plants her feet into the ground with her semblance. She fires a rocket at the first truck, causing it to explode. Elm fires her second rocket at the other truck destroying it too.

A Taliban soldier pulled out an RPG-7 and aimed it at Elm, but before he could fire, an onslaught of bullets struck at him, killing him A trooper who was several feet behind him turned his head to see Jacob, Marrow, Nadir, and Alex all shooting at them. Octavia rushes out of a door from a building and with her semblance, skates across the sandy grounds and slashes at three Taliban troopers. Following behind her was Harriet who dashed two more Taliban soldiers and punched both of them to the ground. A gunner on a 50 caliber gun started to shoot at the two girls, forcing them to rush and hide behind a nearby wall.

From behind a wall, Vine looks out at the battlefield for a moment before turning his head back to face Uzra, Dew, Nora, Gwen, Nebula, Kobalt, and Liberty.

"Are you kids ready?"

"Let's do it!" Nora exclaimed.

With his semblance, Vine grabs onto Nora and Liberty and tossed them over the wall and out into the courtyard.

As the Taliban continued to shoot at their enemies they suddenly heard a battle cry coming from above.

"NORA SMASH!"

Nora lands onto the ground as she slams her hammer down creating a crater and knocking several Taliban soldiers into the air. Following behind her was Liberty, Dew, Gwen, Uzra, Kobalt, and Nebula and upon landing immediately started attacking the Taliban. A Taliban soldier charges over at Uzra, but a line suddenly wraps around his leg, tripping him. Clover ran up with Kingfisher in his hand and kicked the soldier in the face, knocking him unconscious. He turned to see two Taliban soldiers manning the mortar. They fired a mortar shell and the roof of the building where Robert and May are at. The shell struck the roof, sending the two young snipers flying off the roof and falling to the ground below. As they were getting up, Clover turned his head at Elm.

"Ederne! Take on that mortar!" Clover ordered.

Elm rushed into the courtyard as she transformed her rocket launcher into her hammer and swung it at three Taliban soldiers, sending them flying into a building. A truck drives up and speeds over to the Ace Operative, Elm plants herself to the ground with her semblance and as the truck was about to run her over, she grabs a hold of the truck's bumper, putting the truck to a complete stop. She lifts the truck into the air and then tosses it at the two Taliban soldiers manning the mortar cannon. Upon impact the truck explodes, killing the two Taliban soldiers.

As Marrow was shooting at the Taliban, he noticed a Taliban soldier with explosives strapped to his chest charging after him. Marrow points his finger at the oncoming terrorist.

"Stay!" he yelled as the Taliban soldier then froze in place.

Coming from around the corner, one of the armed children charging at Marrow. Panicked he points Fetch with his other arm at the kid.

"Come on, kid. Don't make me do this," he muttered.

The child then started to shoot at the dog faunus, forcing Marrow to shoot and kill the child in retaliation. A Taliban soldier ran up to the now dead boy and knelt down to him. After a moment, he gained an enraged look and turned his attention to Marrow and started shooting at him.

"Son of a-"

Marrow fires and killed the trooper. Just then, another Taliban soldier that looked even older than the last one ran up to the two bodies and knelt down to them.

"Are you kidding me?!" Marrow asked in disbelief.

A moment later, he turns and aims his rifle at Marrow, but the operative fires first killing the Taliban soldier. Marrow looked on at the scene in horror as he realized what he had just done. Harriet ran up to the suicide bomber who was still caught under Marrow's semblance. She the punches him straight into a small group of Taliban soldiers as the bomb then explodes, incinerating them all. Harriet turns around and notices Marrow's horrified look.

"What's wrong with you?" she asked.

"I think I may have just killed three generations in one family," he answered with a shaky voice.

Jacob and Nadir rushed out of cover as they transformed their guns into their swords. They both slashed at a few Taliban soldiers as the ran passed them. Jacob changed God's Judgement back to his rifle and attached his red dot sight piece on it.

"Time for a test drive," he said to himself.

He transformed his rifle back to his sword, but the blade has vertically split in half with the gun barrel in between the two halves of the blade. He runs up to a nearby Taliban trooper and impales him through the back. Three more Taliban soldiers came up and started to shoot at Jacob. Thinking fast, he uses the soldier he impaled and shifts him in front of him, using him as a meat shield. Jacob fires a round at one of the three Taliban soldiers, then fires two more at the other two, killing them. He pulled his sword out of the body and looked at it for a moment.

"Nice," he said with a nod.

A bullet suddenly whizzed past Jacob's face. Quick to respond, he turned to the shooter and fired off a round at him. A moment after, he gained a look of shock and horror upon seeing who he had just shot. It was a little boy with an AK-47 slumped onto the ground dead. He stared at the body and soon started to breathe heavily. He then had a brief flashback with him killing two black kids at the Neo-Nazi rally his father made him go to, which made him start hyperventilating. A Taliban soldier sees Jacob and aims his rifle at him. Liberty notices the trooper aiming his gun at Jacob.

"Look out, Jacob!" she cried out.

Liberty ran up and tackled Jacob to the ground, narrowly avoiding the gunfire from the Taliban.

"Snap out of it, Jacob! We're still fighting here!" she said.

Five Taliban soldiers slowly approach Jacob and Liberty. The Huntress-in-training stood up and turned around to face them as she drew her swords. one of the Taliban soldiers fired his gun, shooting Liberty's swords out of her hands. The Taliban soldiers aimed their guns at Jacob and Liberty.

"I won't let you hurt my friends!" she yelled.

Her eyes suddenly flared up with orange flames. Liberty blasted a large burst of fire, incinerating the five Taliban soldiers. She then floats up into the air with wind swirling around her as everyone around her stopped fighting and all turned their heads to face her. Jacob, Robert, Nora, Alex, and the Ace Ops all look up at her with stunned expressions on their faces and all had one thought that came into realization.

"Liberty's the Fall Maiden," Clover thought. "We need to take her back As soon as possible."

The Taliban soldiers shook off their shock and began to open fire at the Fall Maiden. Liberty swoops down as she summons a pair of scimitars in her hands. She slashed away at every Taliban trooper she came across. Liberty hurled one of her swords at the last truck, and upon striking it, the sword glowed for a moment before exploding, killing several more Taliban soldiers. She threw her other sword at the ground in the middle of a group of more Taliban soldiers, which then exploded, sending them flying. Liberty looked around the courtyard for a moment and saw no more remaining Taliban soldiers left standing. She slowly descended down to the ground and the maiden flames in her eyes went out.

"Liberty!" Clover called out to her.

She turned around to see the Ace Ops, Alex, Jacob, Robert, Nora, May, Uzra, Nabir, Kobalt, and Team NDGO all approaching her.

"It's you!" Nora said.

"You're the Fall Maiden!" Robert said.

"Wait? I'm what?" Liberty asked with a surprised look on her face.

She looked down at her hands for a moment as she conjured a fireball in her right hand and a ball of wind in her left.

"Oops," Liberty said.

"Guys! We've got more incoming!" Elm shouted as she points up ahead.

Everyone turns to see more groups pf Taliban soldiers and a couple more trucks coming up towards them. Suddenly, a couple rockets flew into the trucks, destroying them. They all turned around and looked up to see two Mantas and three Atlesian drop ships flying above them. The Mantas desend to the ground and as six Atlesian soldiers stepped out of each Manta. The hatch doors of the drop ships opened and eight Atlesian Knight-200s jumped out of the airships and landed safely on the ground. The Atlas soldiers and AK-200s, and the Taliban started to open fire on each other. Four Ak-200s were shot and disabled by the Taliban as three of the Atlesian soldier each readied a rocket launcher. They fired their rockets at a large group of Taliban soldiers, as the rest of them were beginning to ran away. The Atlas soldiers and the drones stopped shooting and then started to spread out through the courtyard.

The Ace- Ops, the students, and Alex all watched for amoment before turning their attention towards Liberty.

"We need to get you back to Mountain Glenn immediately," Alex said.

"He's right. the U.H.L. and the headmasters need to be notified on this," Clover said.

"I'll call for a ride back to base," Harriet said as she pulls out a radio.

Charikar

Bagram Air Base

Mess Hall

Later back at Bagram Air Base, Jacob was sitting down at a table alone in the mess hall, with a broken expression on his face.

"What's got you so down in the dumps?" a voice spoke.

Jacob turned to see Team NDGO standing right next to him.

"It's nothing It's nothing," Jacob answered.

"Is it really about that kid you killed?" Gwen asked with an annoyed look on her face.

"Honestly, grow up. He was asking for it," Nebula said.

"He wasn't asked to be a part of the Taliban," Jacob said.

"He's a terrorist. Get over it," Octavia said.

"No, he didn't! The Taliban brainwashed him into becoming one of them, robbing him of his childhood!" Jacob said.

"Doesn't change the fact that the kid is a part of the Taliban. He deserved to die," Dew said.

"Do you honestly have any regard for children's lives? 'Cause I know Octavia doesn't when she used Oscuro Academy's students as live bait for the fucking Grimm in RWBY: Before the Dawn, and Nebula allowed her to do so!" Jacob yelled.

"It'll give them first hand experience when they're up against the Grimm! It's call fucking strategy Besides, they were all fine for the most part!" Octavia argued.

"And if they weren't, then what?!" Jacob asked.

"Oh, well. People die everyday," Octavai said with a shrug.

Jacob suddenly punches Octavia to the floor. He got onto his knees on top of her and violently started punching Octavia in the face. Nebula, Dw, and Gwen grabbed onto Jacob and tried to pull him off of their teammate, but Jacob pushed the three down to the floor and then continued pummeling Octavia. After several punches from Jacob, Octavia's aura depletes. He gave a few more punches to her face, until Octavia's teammates got up and tried to restrain Jacob again. He pushes them away again, then starts to strange Octavia as she desperately tries pushing him off of her. Just then, the Ace Ops and Alex walk into the mess hall and see Jacob choking out Octavia, while Nebula, Dew, and Gwen get up once more to pry him off.

"What's going on here?!" Clover asked.

Vine uses his semblance to grab onto Jacob and restrain him, then lifts him off of Octavia and up in the air. Nebula, Dew, and Gwen lift Octavia up to her feet as her nose was bleeding profusely.

"Let me Go! Let me go!" Jacob yelled, struggling to break out of Vine's grip.

"I think he broke my nose," Octavia groaned in pain.

"Yea! And I gonna broke more then that you fucking cum stain!" Jacob yelled.

"Get her to a doctor," Alex ordered Octavia's teammates.

Nebula, Dew, and Gwen escort Octavia out of the mess hall, leaving the others behind.

"Now what the hell is going on here?" Alex asked.

"It's nothing!" Jacob angrily shouted.

"If it was nothing, then you wouldn't have attacked that girl," Harriet said.

"I think it's about that child soldier he had killed," Marrow suggested.

Jacob then stopped struggling and looked away from them. After a moment, Vine sets Jacob back down to the floor. Alex gave out a heavy sigh and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"Kid, none of us were expecting to encounter child soldiers today, and you weren't the only one that has killed one," Alex said.

"And I didn't just kill a child myself today, I also killed his father and his grandfather," Marrow said.

And Liberty killed the last of the child soldiers among the other remaining Taliban soldiers," Vine said.

"We are going to have to report this little incident to your brother and Professor Ozpin. You need some help for the looks of it," Alex said.

"Come with us. And we'll talk about this," Clover said.

The Ace Ops and Alex walk out of the mess hall as Jacob follows behind them.