Time off (no fic updates) confirmed as going off Thurs 22nd and coming back Jan 4th. Fics will resume after that as normal.
That means no update of this story next week or the week after.
Cover Art: Mysterywhiteflame
Chapter 11
Jaune woke up to a bucket of ice cold water.
This being Atlas, the water had little flakes of literal ice forming in it which pelted off his face as he spluttered and fought his way into a seated position. The world was dark, but a blaring light pierced into his sensitive eyes and had him covering them with his arm. His body felt numb and sluggish, and not just in the way it normally did when he woke up. There was a weight to his legs and a fog in his mind like he'd just come out of surgery. As his vision cleared, he realised he wasn't in his room, which ought to have been obvious because Clover Ebi was stood in front of him with an empty bucket.
"Rise and shine, specialist cadet," said the man, far too cheerful for whatever hour this was. Sleeping hour, Jaune would say. It wasn't just dark out, but night.
"What the hell? Where am I? What time is it?"
"Three-hundred hours and your location is something you'll need to figure out."
Three in the morning? Jaune had gone to bed at ten after an evening of hard training with Penny, and he'd probably taken an hour to fall asleep. Four hours, at best, was not enough for him to feel rested, and certainly not if somewhere in the middle of it he'd been transported out his room. Jaune touched a hand to his mouth. His lips felt odd. They were tingling.
"Did you drug me…?"
"Not the important question."
"I think it is…"
"No." Clover was all smiles. "The important questions are: where am I? What is happening? What do I need to do and, not least of all, where are my teammates?"
Jaune's eyes widened. He looked around and realised he was alone with the man. "Where are my teammates?"
"Well, it's not nearly as impressive if I just pointed out the question. You get half marks at best."
Jaune stumbled to his feet. He noticed his sword on the floor, along with the SMG he'd been practicing with in the firing range. He also had a small pack of some sort. "What the hell is going on, Clover? Is this some training exercise?"
"Of a sort. This is your assessment."
"That…" Jaune's mouth fell open. He licked his lips. "That was only last month; the next one should be a whole month away."
"You mean the assessments for normal students are a month away," said Clover. "You accepted a more rigorous standard when you joined the specialist programme. That includes… well, it includes whatever I and Winter decide it includes." He nodded to the supply pack at Jaune's feet. "You'll want to pick that up."
Jaune did so. He flipped it open to reveal a map, several ration bars, two spare clips of ammunition and a few other survival items like a knife, a compass, a Firestarter pack and more. What he didn't find was a scroll or other communications device, and his wasn't on his person. He'd put it on the shelf in his pod connected into the wall to charge for the night. Clover would have seen it, but he'd obviously chosen not to bring it along.
"Your mission will be a direct recreation of one of mine several years ago," said Clover. "Naturally, it is staged here, so please feel free to not confirm any deaths by double-tapping their bodies. Your bullets are rubber. You are free to use your aura. Should your aura break, you will die on being hit a final time, and lay down flat on the ground. Your opponents will not have aura. They are common military personnel who, in this case, represent the White Fang. They will be dressed as such, and all are faunus who have volunteered for this in exchange for some extra pay and leave."
Nice that they got the warning when he didn't. Jaune scowled at the man and stuck his hands in his pockets. It didn't escape him that he was in a camo uniform and not the pyjamas he'd gone to bed in, which meant someone had undressed and then dressed him. He hoped – for their sakes – that they'd had women do it for Neon and Penny. If not, there'd be hell to pay.
"The scenario is thus." said Clover. "Atlas has received intelligence of a White Fang operation in the wilderness outside Atlas on the border closest to Argus. This barren terrain has no habitation or villages and has long been abandoned after the SDC mined it clear of dust thirty years ago. Aircraft have spotted makeshift shelters in the largest quarry, which is marked on your map. Upon being sent to investigate, your aircraft was hit and sent into freefall. You and your team have leapt free and inserted into the area but have been scattered as you had to jump out at different times as the aircraft fell. You have no idea where your team is or if they are safe. Despite this, you have made the decision to continue the mission."
"Why?" asked Jaune. "I'd have thought this is the best time to pull out."
Clover shrugged. "Orders are orders in this case. You're specialists who were caught off-guard and shot out the sky. You're still far more capable than the terrorists in the camp. Furthermore, there's always the chance one of your own has been captured."
Jaune's eyes narrowed. "Have they?"
"Who can say?" Clover was all smiles. The bastard. "Either way, your mission is to locate the White Fang base, dispose or disable the anti-air batteries that took down your aircraft, then either sabotage the base beyond use or, if you think yourself able, take it down. You will then be expected to retreat to the extraction zone marked on your map."
Nowhere in that was locate his teammates, but it was something that had to happen for this to work so maybe he'd left it out. He almost wanted to ask if there was a reward or secondary objective, but he focused on the important thing instead. "Is there a time limit?"
"No. Your supplies are limited, however. You have maybe a day's rations unless you're able to hunt for more – or steal from the White Fang." Clover took a step back and checked a watch on his wrist. "Well, that's all we have time for. Good luck."
"What!? At least tell me where I am!"
"It's on your map." Clover waved and walked away. "Have fun."
Jaune knelt and scrambled for the map, brought it out and tried to angle it so the moonlight would offer some illumination. It was poor at best, but even he could tell there was no marker saying, "you are here". The only additions were an X for their target and a scribbled EZ with a circle pointing to a hill nearby. Clover had said his location was "on the map" and it probably was. All the nearby locations would technically be "on" a map.
"Son of a bitch," grumbled Jaune. "You want me to figure out where I am, in the dark, while also finding my team and planning how to assault a defended target I have no idea about? What the hell? This isn't a harder assessment, it's an impossible assessment."
Scrunching his map up, he shoved it back into the bag, looped it over his chest, then clipped Crocea Mors to his hip and picked up the SMG. It had a chest strap, so he swung that around his shoulder so that the gun was resting against his chest, the barrel aimed down and to the side. He'd be able to shrug the strap onto one shoulder without too much effort and free it up for proper movement. For now, however, he needed to figure out where his team was.
They'd made no plans, having not expected this, but they'd also never thought to make plans for what to do if they were separated. Scrolls existed and those were all too easy to rely on. This was a hypothetical scenario they'd not considered.
"It'll either be a landmark… which isn't easy because we don't know where we are and it's dark." He bit his lip. "Or they'll head for the objective and hope we run into one another."
The latter was by far the more dangerous, but it was the one location they could all guarantee they'd be heading towards. Anywhere else, and they ran the risk of picking one landmark amongst many. He'd have to stay low and hidden or the "White Fang" would capture him. They were soldiers, so they'd be alert, and they knew what was going on in this training exercise. They had all the advantages here, and they wouldn't be slacking. He wouldn't put it past Clover to have promised them all a little extra if they won, just to make life that little bit harder.
Taking a deep breath, and a bite out of a thick and chewy carb and protein bar, Jaune took the first trudging step toward higher ground. If he could get a good view of the area, he could maybe figure out where in the hell he was on this map. Assuming he could even see said map and the cloud coverage didn't get worse.
And lo and behold, our opponents all have perfect night vision. Great. Perfect. Thanks, Clover, you twisted bastard.
He almost wished he'd refused the specialist programme entirely.
/-/
The area they'd been inserted into was a pockmarked wasteland where sudden drops and falls punctuated the surface like the zit-filled face of an adolescent young boy. Each of those cavernous craters would dip down precariously with huge ramps leading in and out where industrial machinery had once excavated dust on a massive scale. According to the map, there were as many as forty quarries in the area, which was a serious problem as it made finding the White Fang all the harder. If they'd been on the surface then it would be a case of looking for lights or electronics, but down in any one of those quarries they could have been dancing around a bonfire for all he could tell. The moonlight would reflect on the back walls of the quarries, making them light up faintly and confusing his eyes.
He was laid atop a risen mound of excess rubble carved out one quarry and set in a small mountain beside it. A lot of it was loose, but enough was solid and heavy rock that he'd been able to climb it without it falling apart. Laid on his side so the gun didn't press into his chest, he had the map in one hand and a pen in his other, and he was trying his best to cross-reference a tiny patch of trees with the map to figure out his position. Annoyingly, the area had a few, so he'd circled three areas so far and was trying to find anything else to go by. He was half-tempted to gather some sticks and light a fire just to see who responded, but even if his team did come they probably wouldn't approach an empty campfire on their own.
He'd managed to narrow the forests down to two on his map after another fifteen minutes of squinting his eyes to try and pick out distant details. He was just crossing one off when a pebble struck the back of his left leg. Jaune froze and held still. Another ten or so seconds passed before another pebble hit his leg, this time bouncing off to land on his back.
It had been thrown.
His breathing was heavy but he held back from panic. It was unlikely the White Fang cosplayers would toss rocks if they saw him. He had aura, unlike them, so they'd be instructed to open fire with their rubber bullets and try to put him down. Quietly, with but a rumble of pebbles as he moved, he inched his way backwards down the hill in the direction the pebble had come from, turning onto his back to skid down once he was off the crest and out of potential line of sight. When he reached the bottom he wasn't too surprised to find someone there waiting for him. Neon looked awful in her camo, on account of her hair really not matching the effort put forward by the gear.
"How did you find me?" asked Jaune.
"You silhouetted yourself. It was kind of obvious."
"You can't silhouette yourself when there's no light to silhouette against."
"There is for me." Neon grinned and pointed to her eyes. It must have been nice to have that kind of evolutionary advantage. "And you were still a black shape standing out against a mostly dark blue sky."
The sky was black. He checked. The cloud coverage was so great the stars could only be made out in splotches. It was more interesting to know the sky looked dark blue like this to a faunus than anything else. It probably wasn't a surprise Neon would be the first to find one of them if she could see that easily. The bigger surprise would be if the faunus manning the White Fang camp hadn't also spotted anyone. At least there wasn't any gunfire.
"You got kidnapped as well, I take it?" said Jaune.
"Yep. Assholes. Can't believe they're making us fight for our beds this early. I'm not prepared physically or emotionally."
"But you are mentally?"
"I'm always ready to kill for my dorm, Jaune. Always." Neon laughed quietly, her breath a whisper in the still air. "But we need to find the others – and then complete this mission. You got any ideas?"
He was the leader, so it was to be expected. Clover hadn't really covered this in his lessons, though. What he had covered – and Ironwood – was the importance of not letting that be known. "I've got a few good ideas," lied Jaune. He'd hopefully think some up when they got closer. "But most of them revolve around you being able to scout out their base since no one else can see in this. And we'll need to find Flynt and Penny first."
"Yeah, that makes sense. At least you've got some ideas. I was freaking out when I woke up."
Jaune laughed nervously. And quietly. "It's my job, isn't it? I've got to be the ideas guy while you lot run around playing with explosives, military vehicles and people's insides. Okay, maybe less play on Penny's parts."
"I could probably set a bomb if I can find supplies in their base."
"I don't think that's a good idea here. If they were real White Fang, maybe, but these are volunteer soldiers and this is a quarry. I think you'd be more likely to start a landslide and injure some of them than not."
"Maybe they'll have some vehicles Flynt can drive."
"Maybe. We'll need to find them and the White Fang first." He offered his map. "I don't suppose you can see enough landmarks to figure out where we are, can you? We're more likely to find them if we head toward the shared objective."
Neon took it and his pen. "That's how I found you. You're super close."
When she handed the map back, he could see that he was indeed less than four quarries away from the red x on the map. Clover must have chosen to put him this close, though whether that was a mercy or a trap he wasn't sure. He might have wanted to see how the team fared with their leader captured, or if Jaune would have the brains necessary to figure out where he was and not blunder into an ambush.
He peeked back around the mountain of rubble in that direction but it really was close to impossible to make anything out. He really would have wandered around aimlessly if not for Neon finding him. We need to have some sort of plan for if this happens in the future. There might come a time when one of us has lost or damaged their scroll and we can't stay in touch. Even if it's just an agreement to meet at the tallest landmark, that'd be something.
The plan for now was simple: Neon would lead and pick their path using her night vision to keep an eye out for any ambushes. They would make their way closer to the quarry the White Fang were in, as close as they could get, and then she would start scouting it out while Jaune tried to find Flynt and Penny. From there, they'd decide on what to do depending upon what information Neon was able to get. It was a whole lot of nothing and "there'll be a plan later" which would buy him time to think one up, but it made sense and Neon seemed more than happy with it.
"Alright. Follow me."
/-/
Neon brough them to the lip of the crater overlooking the White Fang camp and then pushed him down amongst some rubble, telling him he'd stick out like a sore thumb and not even see who was attacking him until it was too late. She then crept away, practically vanishing into the gloom, and he was left there laying on his side unsure if anyone was moving around him. Except for the lack of noise. If there was any mercy it was that the gravel and disturbed soil made crunching sounds with every step, meaning that it'd take either extreme luck or a sound-based Semblance to sneak up on him. Or a lack of attention on his part. Jaune took a breath and stopped thinking about Neon, focusing instead on paying attention to the world around him.
It was a full half an hour before the crunch of gravel from two people had him tensing, but then the whispered "it's me, Neon" had him breathing out. He knelt up to see her coming close with Penny, the two girls with similar hair colours crouched low and moving as carefully as they could. Even that didn't entirely stop the noise.
"I found her trying to pick her way around a quarry one down," whispered Neon. "She didn't do half bad, but her gun was too polished." Neon chuckled quietly, as if she hadn't just suggested something truly ridiculous. Penny's weapon was the same make and brand as his, and it wasn't glinting at all. "No sign of Flynt."
"Maybe he is better at hiding than me," said Penny.
"Flynt? Ha. Yeah, right. I bet the idiot is just lost somewhere. I'mma look for him."
"Wait." Jaune caught her arm before she could go. "Did you take a look in the crater?"
"Yeah." Neon came back and huddled close so she wouldn't have to raise her voice. Penny knelt by Jaune to listen in. "Basically, they've got a little base down there. It's four small portable cabin-like things with two trucks. One of the trucks has an AA-gun on the back. A fake one," she added, because Atlas wasn't going to risk them destroying real taxpayer funded machinery. "I guess that's what we need to destroy. The other one has its back folded out like some kind of portable command centre. One of the cabins has a big aerial on top of it. Another is a barracks. People coming in and out all the time."
"How many?"
"Enough," said Neon, grimly. "Like, I couldn't count them all but at least forty people. Probably more."
Jaune blew out in frustration. He'd expected maybe ten or so since this was just a training exercise for some new and promising recruits. How many squads had they pulled off active duty for this? General Ironwood was really proving that comment about not sparing any expense on training them. If she'd seen forty people moving around outside, that probably meant there'd be as many again inside assuming a two-rota shift. That prompted a new thought.
"Did you see any patrols?"
"Inside the quarry, yeah, but not outside if that's what you mean. That doesn't mean there aren't any, but they must be camped down as spotters. No movement."
"You can't see them as you did me?" asked Penny.
Neon shook her head. "Faunus know what to look for when it comes to night vision. We don't see perfectly, we're just much better at picking out light. Anything reflective is a dead giveaway and they'd know that. I might be able to spot any if I took, like, an hour or two, but we're the ones on the clock. Not them." Neon drew away. "Let me do another loop around and look for Flynt. If he's got any brains at all, he'll be making his way he-"
A brief crackle of gunfire sounded off on the other side of the quarry. A short burst followed half a second later by an answering one. It exploded from there, turning into a full-on gunfight that echoed over the region.
"-or he'll run right into an ambush," said Neon, groaning. "That stupid jazz-head. I bet he-" Sure enough, and given he was under attack, Flynt began playing on his trumpet. Almost immediately, a bright flash of rainbow light came from over the quarry. "Gah! My eyes!"
Neon wasn't the only one blinded, and she wouldn't be the only one to notice this either. Jaune scrambled to his feet and flicked the safety on his weapon off. Penny was up beside him. "We need to go bail him out. Neon?"
"I'll lead. Argh, that idiot!"
They jogged around the eastern edge of the quarry, picking their way over sharp rocks and cut stone and the occasional rusted and discarded piece of machinery. The fight was continuing, and Flynt had aura and training and probably would win against anything less than four people. The problem was reinforcements from below, and sure enough Neon shouted out and pointed down into the quarry.
He'd have liked to tell her pointing anything out was useless in this dark but he looked anyway. It wasn't entirely impossible to see, and he could make out the dim slope of the ramp in and out the quarry. There was one on both sides, and dark shapes were jogging up the both of them. Jaune swore and waved Neon on, knowing she'd see it.
"Penny, you take the closest ramp. I'll take furthest. Neon, go rescue the brass band."
"Where do we meet up!?"
He almost said "away from here" then realised she had a good point. They couldn't come back here after with the hornet's nest riled up. "Where you first found me!" he said instead. The spot was still marked on the map. "We'll meet behind that mountain and figure things out. Go."
Neon blurred away while Jaune threw himself down prone on the lip of quarry and took aim not at the faunus – too hard to pick out – but at the far slope itself. Penny took a spot several feet down and did the same on her ramp. Taking a deep breath, he aimed his SMG and squeezed the trigger. A staccato burst of three shots punched out. Rubber or not, there was still a muzzle flash and a kick of recoil to announce his position, along with the noise.
The SMG was designed for close quarters combat and rapid rate of fire – and by close, he meant indoors close. This was far beyond its optimum range, which meant that while the shots absolutely could and did reach across the quarry, it was by no means in a tight spread. In fact, as a person raised on video games, he was surprised by how loose the spread actually was. The dust kicked up by the impacts was lighter than the slope, making it visible, and he'd guess they were a good metre to a metre and a half apart.
He didn't think he hit anything in the first salvo, nor the second or third, but people shouted out and the dark shapes hit the deck, crawling for cover and in some cases trying to return it. Most of it went harmlessly overhead or struck the quarry wall, but one lucky shot whizzed by his cheek so close he heard the whistle and tensed up. He had to fight the urge to give up initiative and take cover, reminding himself of his aura, and squeeze the trigger again, keeping the pressure up with short and imprecise bursts that didn't so much hit anyone as threaten to.
Penny was probably having a better time, being able to shoot down and at under fifty metres. The gunfire coming almost straight up toward her was much more visible and was cutting away at the lip of the quarry. At least his opponents were dealing with the same range issues he was.
Jaune and Penny kept the fire up for a full two minutes, reloading as quickly as they could and pacing it out rather than hold down the trigger and run dry. As the second minute ticked by, a new blast of trumpet song played not too far away – and this time it wasn't rampant noise. Flynt was playing a tune, albeit hastily.
"Seriously," said Jaune, speaking loudly over the noise. "Are they having a battle of the bands over there!?"
"Jaune!" shouted Penny. "That is the Atlas regimental tune for retreat." He looked over, for all the good that did, and Penny explained. "Before organised comms and technology, kingdoms would use loud musical instruments to signal orders. That's the tune for an organised retreat."
"Their fight is over." It had to be the case. He'd sent Neon off, but they hadn't planned how to make it clear when they were safe. This must have been Flynt's idea. It wasn't a bad one. "It's time for us to go."
He stood, wincing as a shot caught his larger and more exposed form. It bounced off his shoulder, and another clipped his right leg. He ducked low again, thwarted by Atlas training and accuracy, then rolled away from the quarry's edge instead, making enough distance on the floor before getting into a crawl and then a sprint. Penny was with him the whole time.
It was a frantic and gasping retreat that involved a mad sprint over rough ground and plenty of ducking in and out of cover. The faunus could see them go, but it was risky for them to pursue too far lest they end up being ambushed instead, so after chasing them a short distance and peppering their aura, they were called back by some unheard signal. Of course they would have full comms. Couldn't have this being too easy for Team JCKP.
Gasping and sweating and aching all over, Jaune crookedly stomped behind the mountain of rubble Penny had found him at, and sure enough the two of them were already waiting. Flynt looked annoyed and embarrassed, while Neon was just irritated.
"They had snipers in ambush," sad Flynt, before they could get a word in. "I was staying hidden, but next thing I know I'm under fire. Only managed to find them by the muzzle flash. I didn't even think rubber bullets had muzzle flash."
"They're organised," said Neon, groaning. "Of course they are if they're soldiers. Were the White Fang back on the original mission even half as prepared? I'm calling bullshit."
"We can't see jack and they can see clear as day," complained Flynt. "Now they know we're close I bet they turn off all the lights down there and make us walk into the dark. Only Neon has any chance of fighting back."
"Then let's not go in when it's dark," said Jaune. He could just about make out them looking his way in the gloom. "I don't know about you but I'm tired, sore, and didn't get a full night's sleep. It's probably nearly dawn. How about we just sleep? Take a break and sleep till noon. Go in when it's daylight."
Neon and Flynt exchanged looks. "Is that allowed…?"
"They didn't say it wasn't allowed. We have rations for a bit and we can fight on an empty stomach if we have to." Jaune looked back and rubbed his sore arm where several bullets had impacted his aura. It still hurt. "I'd rather fight hungry than blind and tired."
That was all he had to say.
"I'll take first watch," said Penny. "I don't feel tired."
I'll see you all in the new year if this is the last of my fics you're reading in 2022 – have a merry Christmas everyone.
Next Chapter: 7th January
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