Limbus Company April fools event was fun.

Horrifying, but fun.

Cover Art: GWBrex

Chapter 58

There was a nervous energy to Menagerie as the days went by. Everyone was busy, be it training to use basic weapons or aura, repairing and bolstering the ships, or stockpiling arrows. The initial boiling rage at discovering what had happened to their ancestors had faded somewhat, leaving only a simmering determination to hold the line. Jaune had been worried it would disappear entirely and their nerve would crack, but the faunus were made of sterner stuff. They'd been searching for a way home their whole lives, and they weren't prepared to go back and live in a world where a monstrous Grimm-woman ruled.

Sixty more had their auras unlocked, not only by him but by Pyrrha as well. Ruby hadn't trusted her at first, and probably still didn't, but she believed Pyrrha was helping so much to distract her mind from darker thoughts. If you were too busy to think, then you wouldn't be burdened by realising how much of your life was a lie. He understood her feelings. He'd had months to come to terms with this and it still shocked him at times. Pyrrha's life had been pulled out from under her like a rug.

"Jaune." It was Blake who called out to him, approaching with an arm raised. She was clad in leather and cloth armour, with a bow over her back and shoulder. "Sienna wants to see you. There's a planning meeting going on. Strategy. They need you there to discuss how your magic might help."

"Sure. I'll go now." Blake followed alongside him, and he couldn't help but nod to her bow. "I didn't realise you were an archer."

The woman snorted. "That's because I'm not. But Adam and I are going to need to learn quickly unless we want to swim over and stab their ships. I figure I can learn to hit a galleon with an oil-soaked arrow. Anything more than that is a bonus."

"I can teach you a little if you like?"

"There's no need. We have good marksmen here and it's just practice. Besides, I'd rather you teach us how to hurl magic. There's no one else who can do that."

"I guess so. How are the new recruits going?"

"Our huntsmen and huntresses?" Blake had taken to the title well, as had a lot of the faunus. They liked the way it lacked any military or religious connotations. "They're coming along. Using their aura for magic is beyond any of them but using aura as a shield seems to be more instinctual. They're already tougher than they used to be, but I'm not sure how it'll hold up in combat."

"Not well against Chosen. That's for sure."

"Aye." Blake slowed her ace as they approached Sienna's command tent. "I'm sure that's something they want to discuss. I'll leave you here. Good luck."

Inside the tent was Sienna and a number of people she trusted – older faunus for the most part. Obviously, those involved in combat before given their hardened complexions. There was Taiyang as well. A bit of a surprise, but no less experienced where combat was involved. He was less surprised to see that Pyrrha hadn't been invited. She may have been tolerated on the island but no one was going to let her attend a strategy meeting when she might yet hold loyalties to her home.

"Blake found you then," said Sienna. "Good. We need your involvement in so far as understanding what magical aid you can grant us. There has also been the suggestion that the other you might have more tactical and strategic experience that could be of use."

"You're willing to take Ozma's advice…?"

"Right now, facing the greatest army ever assembled, we'll take anyone's," said a heavyset man with dark bronze skin. "If he is willing."

"It is not my willingness that is in doubt so much as my sanity," said Ozma, whispering into his mind. "I fear that my battleplans over the millennia have been flawed. Tainted by tactics come and gone, many hopelessly out of date. The problem with tens of thousands of years of information is that it has a tendency to blend together and become meaningless."

Jaune relayed the knowledge, which a few of those at the table looked relieved about. The offer had been made, but he couldn't blame them not being too excited to have the Dark Lord involved in a command sense. They were much happier to have him on the prow of a ship hurtling magic at their enemies.

"I'll spare you the detail because I'm not sure what you'll know of naval tactics and battleplans," said Sienna. It was a good thing because the answer was that he knew nothing. The map laid across the table featured little blocks of wood arrayed in what was obviously a formation of some sort, but he couldn't grasp it. It wasn't like an army formation where you had to cover an area and go shoulder to shoulder with people. The ships were spread out in a wide net, a semi-circle with more angular intrusions here and there from smaller bits of wood.

"Our plan is to catch the fleet as they come through the narrow strait that we did. They will be coming in three ships abreast at most, and once they're inside they will need to quickly fan out to make room for those behind." Sienna tapped the map. "This is where we shall arrange ourselves. Not at the strait, but beyond it."

"Wouldn't it be better to hold it?"

"If this were a pass between mountains, yes," said Sienna. "But this is a narrow pass between treacherous waters and currents that'll dash any ship to ruin. You'll be surprised how much manoeuvring goes on in naval combat. We need room to move about and retreat if necessary. We also want them to come through and get stuck. This way we can bring fifteen or more vessels to bear on three of theirs at any time."

"Once they're in, we're hoping to sink the lead vessels as soon as possible and create a graveyard of ships. The water is deep, and they shall sink, but it will take time and the wreckage and flotsam will cause havoc in the meantime. That's when the strait works to our advantage. Ships at the front will be forced to slow down to navigate through the wreckage, and those behind will be slow to get the memo. There will be impacts. At slow speed, yes, but there is a chance some will be forced out into dangerous waters and crippled before they reach the battlefield. That'll only get worse and worse as the battle goes on."

A few of the commanders pushed the blocks of wood forward, and Jaune could at least see the closing semi-circle on the three small red blocks and understand what they meant. For a moment, they would have superior numbers. But only for a moment. If Salem's forces could weather the storm and push through even a little then that three ships would become six, then nine, then twelve. Once that happened it would turn to pitched combat, and she would have the advantage.

"How many ships do we have?" asked Jaune.

"We have forty-four combat-capable ships."

"That's not bad…"

"It's not enough," said a man. "We anticipate they will come with well over two hundred. We'll need to make every vessel count."

"That's why we're considering bringing one of the arks out," said Sienna. A wooden goblet was placed on the map to represent it. "She won't be fighting or even moving because navigating combat with one is all but ridiculous. But we'll station her as such, drop anchors, and use her as a stationary weapons platform. A second will hang back with a nastier surprise in store. Taiyang, if you will?"

Ruby's father smiled madly. "I suppose I should – it was my idea after all. Experience from back in my day with the tribe when we sometimes had to raid fortified villages. An old trick of ours was to take a wagon, fill it with straw and set it alight, then drive the thing into the gates. If they didn't want them to catch fire they would need to put it out somehow, which is no small task. Often, they'd open the gates to try, and then we'd strike."

He set another goblet on the table. "This second ark will be stacked with as much straw, oil, and flammable material as we can manage. It will be anchored here, aimed directly at the strait, and if things get bad or we start to lose control of the situation then she'll be sent in and set alight. Her crew will need to be ready to abandon ship at any moment, and it'll be a dangerous task, but with her sheer size and mass, I highly doubt they'll be able to sink her before she crashes into the strait and any ships there."

It would be chaos. The good kind in this case. "Can't we rig more to go like that?" asked Jaune.

Sienna shook her head. "We hardly even have the time or supplies to fill one of the arks with enough material. We'll never have time for two. Keep in mind this will be a vast amount of material stored in there. It will go up like a bonfire. The flames will be ten times higher than any of their ships. They have to be," she added, "Or their Chosen will snuff it out with a wintry breeze."

True. If the fires were hot enough and powerful enough then they'd struggle to deal with them, magic or no. Normal ships burning merrily could be pushed aside with magical winds and sent crashing to the side, or even back into their own forces, but an ark was too big and too heavy for that.

"It all sounds good to me," said Jaune. "But I was told you needed to ask me what I could do."

"Yes. Our biggest problem isn't even the numerical superiority of their ships or their powerful supply chain. It's their Chosen. You've been helping to unlock aura and train people in its use, but we don't dare initiate any boarding actions even so because the Chosen will be better than our forces at it. And there will be more of them. Our biggest fear right now is that they'll use magic to push through our initial blockade and forge a beachhead, from which they'll bring all their ships slowly and safely through before recommencing the attack."

"If I was them," said Taiyang. "I'd send as many Chosen on the lead ships as I could fit. Have them ready to deal with any magic and break ships apart. That's the risk we have right now. Is there anything you can do about it?"

Was there…? Jaune had a decent grasp on magic now thanks to Ozma's help but he was one man. He could probably overpower any one Chosen, but if they put fifty on a boat and sent them in, then he wasn't sure his magic would get through. They could overpower just about anyone and destroy any ship that came within range.

"I can be of assistance there." whispered Ozma. "You might struggle but I have tricks under my sleeve. Grant me control and I shall see to it those first ships are broken – Salem's Chosen or not."

Jaune nodded. "I can handle it," he told them. Best they not worry about the specifics. "The first boats will go down unless Salem herself is on them. What about Grimm, though? We know she can use them. Are we not worried about them attacking?"

"There's only so much we can plan for, and we believe she'll avoid them. She obviously doesn't need them to beat us down with the numbers she has and revealing them would put her position at risk. If we fight this invasion back then we might have to worry about Grimm after, but we all think she'll avoid those for now. Too much risk of her own forces turning on them."

"All right. Leave the first ships to me and I'll help after however I can. Where will I be posted?"

"We're thinking to have you on the stationary ark," said Taiyang. "It's the only vessel we can guarantee won't go down in a hurry. With the sheer amount of firepower it'll take to sink that thing, we can all but guarantee it'll be the last ship standing. We're going to be putting anyone capable of using magic reliably on there."

"Don't worry about positioning," added Sienna. "We're going to make sure it's close enough to the strait to both be within range, and to cause them some headaches. They'll have to manoeuvre around it or try and board it – neither of which will be a simple matter. It's going to be a floating fortress by the time we're done."

A castle out in the water that the enemy fleet would have to sail by. That sounded good, and he wished they had enough time to build a real stone castle out there. That'd take years though, and even the barest fortification would take months. Their time was much better spent readying more ships for combat.

"I can do many things but building a castle on deep water is not one of them."

Jaune waited until he was dismissed and outside to ask, "What do you think our chances are?"

"This plan has been devised by skilled mariners who know what they are doing. All too often were plans in the past my own, and history has shown how useful those have been. I think this will work better. They are not me after all."

"And Salem?"

"There is no reason for her not to be arrogant. That same history, thousands of years long, has shown her time and time again that I will fail. If she believes me in charge of this, and she has no reason to think otherwise, then the same forces that have always bested me should do so again here." He chuckled. "For once, my many mistakes will work to our advantage."

/-/

Remembering Blake's request, Jaune's feet took him to the outskirts of Menagerie where a large open area had been set up for people to play with their aura without fear of harming anyone. Sienna had told him he could have the land for a school if he wanted, but they both knew that wouldn't be for many years, maybe even a decade, and only if they survived that long in the first place.

The newly awakened members of Menagerie were split into two main groups under Ren and Ruby, who were by far the best at utilising their aura after all the one-on-one training they'd had with Ozma. Ruby could protect herself with it, but also summoning big balls of fire that she could hurl a short distance. Ren, on the other hand, was much more advanced. Ozma said it was because he had learned to feel aura without seeing it, and that let him grasp the flow and essence of it in a way Ruby couldn't. He could bring forth fire as well, but he could make it dance, and he had stared to grasp lightning also, but not the method by which Ozma could bring forth a storm. Ren could only use it if the storm was already there.

He caught Pyrrha watching from a distance and decided to approach her; the redhead former Chosen saw him coming and smiled weakly. There was a bitter smile on her face. "This reminds me of when I first started," she said. "Things were easier back then. The world certainly made a lot more sense."

"How are you holding up?"

"With great difficulty." Pyrrha turned to face him proper, and he could see the dark rings around her eyes. "Sleep isn't coming easy and in truth I'm afraid to fall asleep for the nightmares. Coco is taking it even worse."

"I've not seen her at all."

"That's because she refuses to come out her quarters or interact with anyone but me. Though she has fought Grimm." Pyrrha was quick to assure him. "That's a relief for both of us when it happens. We've kept the borders secure."

"Were they acting unusually?"

"Unusual-? Oh, you're asking if they were under her control." Pyrrha looked away uncomfortably. "I wouldn't say it was any different to normal. They weren't any more aggressive or coordinated. I suppose that will be the sign, won't it? When all the Grimm move as one, we'll know they're being commanded."

Stragglers then. Just normal Grimm on their outskirts. That was good. "Is there anything I can do to help with your friend?"

"Stay away from her. I don't mean that cruelly. Just that seeing you won't help right now. I also don't think she or I can participate in your defence. I can't bring myself to fight against my friends, and I know Coco won't be able to. I'm sorry."

"It's fine." It was less than ideal but not unexpected. "I hear you've been helping out with the training here."

Pyrrha smiled. "Here and there. A little at a time. I'll admit that I wanted to see how the men use aura and see if there are any differences. As far as I can tell, there aren't. It's the same concept and the same training and the same magic. Ironic, isn't it? If we'd seen more men like this, then we'd have noticed the lie in her words centuries ago. Of course, any man with aura would have been branded as the Dark Lord and hunted down. It makes you wonder how we were so blind."

"I wouldn't feel bad about it since even I didn't realise what I was until after you and Cinder visited, and I didn't learn about Salem until reaching Menagerie. When you grow up learning one thing, it's hard to accept it might be wrong."

"Hmm. I think that is what upsets Coco. She doesn't deny it, and she isn't going to go running back to Salem. It's just that she's struggling to come to terms with it. Struggling to find something else to believe in."

"Crisis of faith?"

"Yes."

"And what do you believe in?"

"Nothing, I suppose." Pyrrha shrugged. "I could say the courage of mankind or the goodness in our hearts but if you're talking about faith then I would say I have none now. And I'm mostly content with that. Not happy, but ambivalent. Coco comes from a far more religious family however, and I think she's trying to find something to substitute her belief into. That's why I don't want you interacting with her."

"You're afraid she'll worship me?"

"Well… not you. Him." She chuckled. "And no offence but I don't think he is any more worthy of worship than she is at this point."

He had a feeling Ozma would agree with that, and the contented rumbling in the back of his head said as much. Ozma had never been one to call himself a god and had by all accounts worked as just another human in the past.

"I guess I'll leave her to you then. And if you can't fight then at least you can protect Menagerie if the Grimm do attack, and maybe you can protect its citizens should we lose and the church decides to punish them for their blasphemy…"

Pyrrha's smile fell. "I suppose so. If that happens…" She trailed off, eyes closing. Menagerie was home to thousands of innocent people, including many children. Of course those children now all knew the truth, and that meant they would never be accepted back into civilised society under the Church of Salem. "If that happens then I expect Coco and I will stand our ground. I don't think that will change much, however. They will cut us down as traitors. And then do the same to…" He waited for her to finish but she didn't. Couldn't.

Pyrrha didn't say another word and turned to stare out over the open ocean. After a few minutes of that, in which it became clear she wouldn't speak, he quietly excused himself and left her to her thoughts.

/-/

They had a month.

That was the time it took the survivors to report to the Church, or maybe that was how long it took for someone to talk and have them all rounded up. Or maybe that was just the time it took them to gather a force, ships, and prepare for a campaign. Either way, they had no more than thirty days to prepare.

The largest of the arks had been made larger with the inclusion of thick wooden planks up and down its front and one side where it would be facing to serve as armour, and its decks had been strapped with wooden planks standing vertically that archers could hide behind like the battlements of a castle wall. The carpenters had evidently taken the concept of a "fortress" literally, and worked with that in mind because the top two decks inside had also had the walls hollowed out to make for little windows, upon which mounted crossbows and some as large as ballistae had been strapped in.

Sienna had wanted a series of catapults on the deck as well, or several mangonels, but the engineers had only been able to construct two by the time the advance scouts warned of a fleet on the open water. At that point it was decided that two would have to be enough, and the ark was to be taken out to where it would stand. It would be much too ponderous to get into position otherwise.

With all the ammunition for the ballistae and crossbows, and barrels upon barrels of arrows and javelins – and two huge piles of stone and rubble for the mangonels – Jaune was surprised the thing could stay afloat in the first place. The hundreds of people it had transported as passengers to reach Menagerie must have weighed more than all of that combined.

It was with a slow creaking that the captain angled the ark so that its armoured sides faced the strait, and Jaune watched it nervously, half-expecting Grimm to come through as an advance force and coincidentally savage the defenders before Salem's fleet arrived. That would be, the church would say, proof of their divine favour that their enemies faced such tragedy.

"Ozma was right to call her arrogant…"

"Hm?" asked Ruby. "What's that?"

"I'm talking about Salem. Ozma said her arrogance will have her face us in pitched battle even though we've had time to prepare. I thought she'd send Grimm ahead to attack us first." He nodded to the strait. "Looks like Ozma was right."

"Looks like it. I'd be arrogant too in her shoes."

"We have a good defensive position."

"Yeah, but she has five times as many ships, five times as many skilled aura-users, who have more than five times as many years training it. And their equipment is probably five times better than ours too."

Jaune laughed. "Don't give any speeches anytime soon, Ruby."

"Heh. We'll win. I'm just saying she has good reason to think this a foregone conclusion. It'd be stranger if she didn't think that. And even if they do have to come through a narrow pass to reach us, it's not like their ships aren't better individually than ours. This ark is the only thing we have going for us."

"It's a big thing, though."

"Yeah. It is."

A voice behind them cried "HEAVE!" a second before wood creaked and rock flew overhead with an ominous rush of air. The payload spread out as it flew, splashing down maybe fifty metres in front of the strait's exit.

"Not far enough!" shouted a spotter. "A little higher!"

The second shot went further, splashing down at just the right spot. The mangonel's angle was locked down, and anchors – four of them – crashed down into the water to hold the ark not only steady, but at the perfect angle to keep their firing platform stable and their armoured side to the enemy. The mangonels had the range now, and the armour, and they knew exactly where the first ships would be coming in from.

"Our job is going to be keeping the ships away from ours," said Jaune. "Even if we've helped teach them to use aura, these people won't have a chance against Chosen if they board us. And they'll try. You, Ren, and I are the only ones who can buy our ships time."

"Yeah." Ruby rubbed her hands together. "It's fine. I'm not nervous." Her shoulders shivered. "Maybe a little nervous. Are you?"

"Terrified," he admitted.

"You don't sound it."

"I think I'm so scared I'm not reacting to it. That or I've convinced myself Ozma will handle most of it. I'm not as calm on the inside as I sound. Believe me." This battle would determine his life, and he'd already concluded that he was going to die here if things went bad. Survival would mean capture and being kept prisoner by that thing. There was no telling what Salem would do to him.

Better to die fighting than find out. This is it. Win or die. No other options.

"Lash everything down!" shouted a sailor. "They'll be here tomorrow. This is it, ladies and gents. Our home, our land. We fight for what is ours. For Menagerie!"

"For Menagerie!" roared the crew.

Jaune was relieved someone took the whole motivational speech part away from him, not that he thought they'd be particularly enthused to hear him anyway. "Let's take a small boat back to shore," he said. "I don't know if I'll be able to, but Ozma tells me I should get as much sleep as humanly possible. There won't be much time for rest once this starts."

"We'll win," said Ruby. Less certainly than before. "We have to."

"We'll give it our best shot."

"If nothing else," said Ozma. "We will make them bleed."

Next Chapter: 9th April

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