Big Issues
AN: Welcome back folks! First, I'd like to thank DeepForestWizard, christian-bastias-h, dragonbane522 and Light He'arth for the combination of faves, follows, and favorites, with the latter also faving and following Small Issues, the prequel to this series.
Second, as much as I was hoping to get another chapter of Small Issues done for you all, that got put on the back burner as I've been trying to knock out the Battle for Haven chapters because I plan on having a special Halloween chapter for you all to enjoy. So I'll be pushing myself to be back to writing a chapter a week for that to happen, just for you guys and gals who have been reading this series.
Third... the author notes are over for now. On with the show!
Haven Part Two
Raven was surrounded and had to make hard choices.
In front of her stood her tribe, men and women who she had led for years, training many of them herself. Many she thought of as loyal to her leadership, if not to the tribe overall. Others recognized the gap in strength and were kept in line knowing that they wouldn't stand a chance in either direct confrontation or with popular opinion.
Apparently getting some new toys was enough for many to shift their allegiance to the provider.
Meanwhile, she had her daughter beside her who she was beginning to make amends with, her stepdaughter who showed a determination that gave her pride, their friends who had made the journeys here and had overcome many obstacles along the way. And her own twin brother who had been the one to keep their family together.
And they were being held at gunpoint and trapped while demands were being made.
"Well? What will it be?" Cinder seemed to be enjoying her position of power far too much and there were many who wished to see the smile smacked off her face.
Raven grit her teeth as all eyes were on her, waiting for what she would do.
Time ticked by and the anticipation became suffocating. The bandits became twitchy, knowing her power and how ruthless she could be, leaving many to hope that they wouldn't have to engage with her at all.
The Huntsmen wished they could say or do anything to help but they were worried that moving would instigate the fight. Qrow watched his sister struggle to come to a decision. In a way, it was actually comforting as he knew that she'd make up her mind and stick to it often without the full picture. Most of her choices had been self-serving in the past and her time with STRQ had been the only true time that she had put others before herself.
"Are you sure about this new path for the Tribe, Vernal?" Raven finally spoke. "It will destroy the Branwen Tribe and its history that dates back longer than the modern kingdoms."
The young woman raises her pistols to a ready position. "If that's what it takes." Her weapons began to hum lightly as they powered up the Dust within.
All eyes looked between them and Raven took a deep breath. "Very well then."
Those three words nearly made Cinder's face split from her grin.
—-
Scarlet was still reeling from the blast, thankful that his Glide hadn't been disrupted. The big problem now was that the rest of the team were now scattered among the rubble he could see. Sage heaved a large stone off himself that was pinning him down. Nadir had been lucky to have fallen between two blocks before a chunk of the gate fell on top of them and he was slowly crawling out now that things had settled. Bolin had landed clear of anything that would really hurt him and dodged out of the paths of rolling debris. Neptune somehow landed in a tree.
And for as well as they did to survive, the guards who had been there earlier weren't sharing the same luck, their bodies buried in the rubble or flung away by the blast.
Reese and Arslan fared better as they were on the other side of the wall when the bombs went off and much further away. They weren't spared the shockwave that sent everyone reeling in the canyon but they avoided being close enough the large debris fell short, though some of the White Fang weren't as fortunate.
Not only were there more of them to potentially be hit, and were, but more than a few had ears as their trait and suffered from the auditory overload and needed more time than their allies before they could even attempt to continue the attack.
The Menagerie Militia fared much better as they were much further away and only had to deal with pebbles raining down on them and the sound.
"Gah!" Blake stumbled and held her head with one hand, her ears instinctively folding themselves down tightly.
"Blake!" Sun took advantage of an enemy reeling from the blast to knock them out with his staff. The monkey reached out for his girlfriend but had to adjust to block a sword swing aimed at the stunned fat cat. "Get away from her!"
Ruyi Jingu Bang clashed with the blade twice more before it forced the wielder to release the weapon and its owner was struck several times in rapid succession before he fell to the ground.
"Thanks." Blake shook the ringing from her ears and pat Sun on the back
"Anytime. Now let's finish this!" He declares before leaping into the fray, blindsiding a pair of White Fang members by clotheslining them with his staff.
Blake watched as he fought with more determination and more seriousness than any time before, barring the confrontations with Adam. She had called him out on this after the third night of being on Anima and having taken down yet another outpost.
"Sun, what's going on?"
He gave her a glance before going back to double checking his weapon in their shared tent. "What do you mean?"
"It's… it's just that you seem to be… not yourself. Not since we got here." Blake laid a hand on his shoulder and was glad that he didn't pull away.
"How am I supposed to be? Those guys have attacked our people. Our home." His tone was full of anger but it was tightly controlled and none of it directed at her. "So much of the crap at Beacon… the palace… Menagerie, they caused so much pain wherever they went."
Blake couldn't stop the heavy feeling of guilt as she had been a major part of the escalating attacks until she finally had a breaking point a little over two years earlier and left. Though she did feel pride and happiness that he referred to Menagerie as home, as she does.
"And now they are going after my school and the city around it!" His hands were balled into fists and shaking. "I just hope that Professor Lionheart has things under control and Haven is safe with him in charge."
"Me too Sun, me too." Blake wraps him in a hug from behind and felt his tension fade away.
They soon fell asleep in each other's arms, doing what they could to prepare for the fights ahead.
"Right behind you!" Blake swung Gambol Shroud on its ribbon and let it lodge itself into an outcropping above her, using it to swing like a wrecking ball into a rather large Faunus with the ears of a hippo poking out of his hood, hitting him with her heels, bowling him over and interrupting his charge on Sun.
"Left flank! Advance!" Sienna orders loudly, if she had suffered from the same ear pain that Blake did, she hid it well. The shields began to move forward with spaces for the gunners to fire freely from cover. The right flank held their position as they shot at the ranks of White Fang who had regrouped and began to fight back.
"Ilia! With me on the left!" Itazura calls out as she races up behind the shields and a ram man cupped his hands and tosses her into the air where she began to fire Lagh and Loki from above where the terrorists had little to no cover. Ilia followed soon after, her Lightning Lash snapping out to maximum length and slicing into weapons or forcing targets out of cover in their attempts to dodge, only to be shot as they did.
But this was only the rear guard of the White Fang and their numbers kept the Militia from advancing quickly, even with the Huntresses and Huntsman doing the half of the damage.
On the other end of the White Fang's held ground, Arslan and Reese found themselves being pushed to their limits to keep up with the attacks coming from all directions as they were nearly surrounded. The young women fought their way back to the remains of the gates and to their teammates, Arslan's weighted chain complimenting her rope dart well in extending her reach as Reese ran beside her using her pistols for further reaching attacks.
"Hurry up!" Neptune calls to them as he and Scarlet tried their best to provide cover fire, the other boys having lost their acquired weapons during the explosion. The others were setting themselves up among the remains of the wall and quickly pushing debris to block paths and create choke points as well as points to serve as cover.
"We're coming!" Reese yells over her shoulder as she pulls her triggers in rapid succession and sprayed energized Dust at anyone in a black and white uniform.
"Break through those humans!" Porco was heard ordering her troops as she charges with them at the remaining defenses.
Arslan and Reese leapt the blockade and took cover as they caught their breaths. "Grenade out!" Nadir shouts as he tosses a pair that land among the ranks of the White Fang, quickly neutralizing a dozen at once. A third one thrown was shot out of the air, the Dust reacting to detonate it there and too high to be of any consequence to the Faunus below.
"Hold onto those!" Bolin orders his teammate before he could pull another pin.
"Why? We're about to be overrun!" Sage had opted for chucking rocks at the White Fang, which as amusing as it sounded was at least slowing their progress as they had little idea if one of them may be a grenade until it either hit someone or came close enough to see clearly through the dust and poor lighting.
Reese, Scarlet, Nadir, and Neptune kept up the suppressive fire but they were starting to worry about their own ammunition reserves. "I got an idea. Hold your fire." Bolin gave the team a grin that had them looking back as if he'd grown another head.
The first of the White Fang pushed through the remains of the wall to find that the kids had retreated further back. As more of his allies stepped through, they grew bolder and advanced further.
"Now!" A male voice shouts and the sound of jangling keys filled the air. The Faunus look down to see a white rope with a sharp looking steel rod on the end dragging along several steel rings with their own metal bars attached. Rings that looked a lot like those from…
"Grenades!" The warning came too late as five detonated in succession and took out the first wave.
While that did force the next wave to pause, their arrival was inevitable and they made sure to emerge with guns blazing. And they came through in force.
What they didn't expect was for two boys to step out, one with a staff and one with a massive sword, and swing their weapons at the rocks that were tossed near them, hitting the stones and sending them hurtling at the terrorists and forcing them to scatter for cover from the rocky spray. Several volleys later, one of the boys had connected with something that made a metallic ring, and soon the Faunus found a grenade near their hiding spots.
BOOM!
With them now out of their cover, the Huntsmen opened fire again and took down those they could quickly. But as they had focused on them, the rest of the White Fang pushed and cleared enough debris that they were no longer focused through a single point of entry. And they used that to ensure the Huntsmen had to retreat.
—-
Not far away, Neo was watching what was happening from a rooftop. Upon seeing the White Fang uniforms and the Huntsmen struggling to hold them back, her grip on Hush tightened. Apparently the radical Faunus organization was still following the plans of her former 'employer', just with a different location this time.
She grit her teeth as that meant that She had to be nearby. The woman who had set up Roman to take the blame of attacks in Vale. To be captured by the Atlas General and held in a cell for weeks on his ship. Set up everything to draw in Grimm to the city to overwhelm the defenses. Grimm that had eaten Roman.
She had seen the man swallowed by a Griffon before she was blown too far away on the winds, left helpless as she feared that she may suffer the same fate as her only true friend.
She may not be where She is, though Neo could take an educated guess but she could work out some of her stress and frustrations here and now. And it may give her some brownie points with Lil' Miss Malachite for helping to defend Mistral while also helping in a small way to ruin Her plans.
With that thought in mind, Neo flicked her thumb and an inch of sharpened, gleaming titanium alloy appeared above the hook of her umbrella… just before she vanished from the rooftop in a flash.
—-
With those three words spoken by Raven, Vernal whipped around and used the blade rings to slash the nearest bandit, followed by kicking the knee of another and shooting a burst of double-barreled Fire and Lightning Dust beams into the assembled crowd.
Needless to say, the sudden reversal took everyone by surprise aside from Tater, who had followed suit and bowled over the nearest bandits with a far reaching backhanded swing of his fist, and the Branwen twins themselves. They had seen the hand sign from Vernal and recognized it as asking permission to remove traitors, a silent request that had been in long use by the tribes leaders and their most trusted circles to root out and remove traitors.
Those shot by Vernal were left with extreme burns that tore through what little aura they had and seared their skin. Those with armor, especially the new ones, fared better as the metal flashed as it absorbed the heat and produced sparks like a welder. And anyone hit by Tater were slow to rise again as the massive man could hit incredibly powerfully even when holding back.
"What the-!" Yang was the one to voice her thoughts that matched most of the others.
That didn't mean that Denko, Anya, and Talon didn't react to the turn of events; they burst from assembled teams and tore into the bandits before they could get past their shock. Likewise, Qrow turned Harbinger on Hazel so fast that the big man barely raised his arm in time to avoid taking the blade to the face.
"Don't just stand there! Take care of the small fry!" Raven orders the team, causing most to glance at her in confusion before following the order. From there, Raven locked eyes with Cinder, silently mocking the younger Maiden as the tables had been turned.
"Orders?" Mercury asks, looking more amused at how things were going than anything else.
"Put them down." Cinder growls as she digs her fingers into the wooden banister.
"I was hoping you'd say that." The assassin smirks before leaping off the balcony into the crowd below.
"Emerald, stay here."
"Yes madam."
—-
Hazel lowered his arm as the large sword was pulled away. "You shouldn't have done that." He rumbles.
"Meh, you would have joined in the dance sooner or later. Why not get you going early?"
"Because it would mean your death comes sooner." The thick neck stretched and knuckles were cracked in preparation for the coming fight.
"Not like I haven't heard that a few times before. But hey, I'm still here." Qrow shrugs.
"Not for long." The big man punctuates his words with a punch at Qrow's chest, only hitting air as the slender man twists out of the way and brings his sword up at Hazel's face once more, getting stopped by the other arm.
The fist opened and swiped at the swordsman, hoping to grab him, causing the smaller man to leap back out of reach and dart back in as soon as his feet hit the floor. The slash at Hazel's ribs hit cleanly but aside from being moved by the impact, Hazel showed no signs that it bothered him in the slightest, immediately retaliating with a backhand.
The counter missed but now Qrow was sure that he had to think fast if this juggernaut of a man wasn't phased by what should have been a crippling blow, aura or not.
—-
Talon and Anya clashed with the bandits, using the tight quarters as a shield from the shiny new rifles as their enemies tried to not shoot each other. That meant that everyone was in melee range and the sisters' blades cut down any in their path. Not far away, Denko was aiming for the mech, twisting out of the way of its own blade and letting it hit the floor. But with the arm down, Yang used it as a step before punching the canopy and making the entire mech shudder.
A few paces away, Ruby and Weiss had partnered up and went after a group of bandits who were about to blindside Vernal, the former slicing through their spears while the latter drop-kicked the nearest, sending them toppling like dominoes.
Meanwhile, JNPR stuck together as the knight and Spartan rushed the crowd with their shields raised, plowing through the bandits with Ren and Nora following closely to hit any who managed to dodge or tried to attack their backs.
—-
Anya noticed the shadow above her just in time to dodge the falling heel aimed for her head. As a result, the wooden floor gained a new hole.
"Not really the one I wanted to take out first but we never did finish our fight last year." Mercury was surprisingly calm as he stood ready to fight.
"You know very little about me." Anya replies simply, her gauntlets ready for the bout ahead.
Mercury shrugs. "I know enough. Even if I don't, you ain't walking out of here anyway."
Talon was locked in a battle of blades, apparently the better skilled bandits had let the others be fodder and to wear down their enemies, though the chubby swordswoman wasn't slowing down at all, just waiting for an opening in any of the two men and a woman to exploit.
"Take care of him, Sis! I got the others!" She continued the clash, her paired scimitar flashing around her as she practically danced among her opponents. Even as she did, a fourth man joins the fray.
Mercury wasted no time snapping his right leg up at Anya's chin, his boot striking her left gauntlet instead. In a flash, his legs switched as did her arms. And again. The next kick became a roundhouse for her head but that was stopped cold like the others.
Red eyes bored into grey as he backed off, with nothing but irritation at the sight of him.
"C'mon, what's with that look?" Mercury quips.
"Just deciding if the scum in front of me is worth the effort."
That line made the assassin's mood flip like a switch, going from apathetically amused to pissed. "Then I'll prove my worthiness by killing you!" A blast of compressed air punctuated his words as he shot towards Anya with his legs ready to kick.
—-
"Ha! Payback time Bitch!" Shay yells through his mechs speakers as he swings at the pudgy blonde as she leaps over his head. By the time Yang landed, Denko had already dealt with the nearest bandits and stood ready to fight with her against the wanna-be badass.
"Yeah, big words from someone hiding in a trashcan!" Yang counters with a grin.
"He's not worth our time without it, may as well give him the handicap." Denko shrugs, intentionally irritating the bandit.
"Not worth the time?!" Shay screeched as the gun arm was raised. "See if this is worth the time!" And the machine gun began firing.
The couple split as bullets passed through where they were and a few of his fellow tribe members were hit in the process.
"Nice tech, too bad you can't aim!" Yang taunts as she dashed in to deliver a hard punch to the mechs knee, barely making it shudder. "Hmph, pretty sturdy. Yipe!" Her comment was cut off as the blade on its arm swung at her, forcing Yang to jump back.
Unfortunately for Shay, his focus on her left him open from the other side, Denko slashing Raijin into the main hull several times before he too had to back off thanks to a large metal arm. While minor, the damage was there and clear.
"Don't think I forgot about you!" The arm lifted and Denko found himself looking down the barrel of the cannon.
"Shit!" Denko threw himself to the side just as it fired, the blast sending him reeling a bit but the Dust shell missed him and went down the hallway that Shay had entered from, exploding once it impacted the wall at the end.
—-
"Haha!" Nora couldn't help but laugh as she smacked the bandits around with Magnhild. They put up little real fight, which she found disappointing, but there were so many to whack. Ren was nearby clashing blades with two at once before he swept the legs out from one and redirected the sword of the other to create an opening to drive his knee into the man's stomach and followed that with an elbow between his shoulders, dropping him onto his partner.
Jaune and Pyrrha found themselves surrounded by a dozen opponents who would attack randomly and rarely alone, forcing the couple to break off attacks that would have ended a combatant's ability to continue. Thus they were caught in a trial of endurance and wills.
"Pyrrha, please tell me you're gonna stop holding back." Jaune pleads as he blocks a warhammer strike with his shield.
"Ha! 'Stop holding back', he says." One of the women laugh.
That only made Pyrrha pause during the short break offered by the bandits taking the time to snicker. Green eyes narrowed as she raised her left hand which was covered in a black glow.
The laughter stopped as the bandits felt their weapons shaking in their grips before they lost the fight. In a few seconds, Pyrrha had stripped them of every blade, gun, and and metal weapons they had, as well as a few buttons and clasps that resulted in two of the men losing their belts and one woman losing her studded pants altogether. The men scrambled to pick up their falling pants as the woman was stunned silent.
But the gathered ball of metal over her head did not stay that way for long. Pyrrha clenched her fist and crushed the ball into scrap metal and rendering everything useless before sweeping her hand out to hurl the ball around her like a small moon, striking every bandit in its orbit.
"Hey Pyrrha! Pitch it!" Nora shouts with her hammer raised.
The taller redhead turned and grinned, giving the ball an extra loop around her, deterring any bandits from getting too closer to her while others saw what their plan was and had begun to run away.
BANG!
The metal on metal collision was murder on their ears and Pyrrha dropped to the floor with Jaune in time for the ball to fly over their heads and straight into the wall just in front of the fleeing bandits, making them stop in fear. Though that fear was warranted as the Dust was agitated too much from the multiple hard impacts and exploded, turning parts of the ball into a mine.
While those bandits weren't seriously injured by the blasts, the injuries they sustained earlier made it too much to bear and they all dropped to the ground and gave up the fight.
"Alright! Home run!" Nora shouts, holding her hammer high.
"Uh-oh." Ren wasn't as enthusiastic as more bandits ran their way.
—-
"What are you doing?!" Vernal asks as she fends off a pair of swords, kicking the man back but he was quick to reengage.
"What do you mean? We're helping you!" Ruby knocked a woman down with the blunt side of her scythe before dropping it on her stomach after a quick spin.
"Never asked for any!"
"Too late now, already here!"
"Why don't you take 'Wideload' and scram?"
"Haha! Wideload!"
"I wouldn't laugh too much, Doughball!"
Neither had stopped fighting at all during their exchanges and just kept going back and forth.
Not far away, Weiss had found herself close to Tater. During her time as a prisoner, she had noticed that he was quiet and reserved, as well as respectful towards women, captive or not, even ensuring that she wouldn't be bothered by the men with 'looser morals' than the rest of the tribe.
"Is… is she always like this in a fight?"
Tater smacked away a man, conveniently one who owed him from poker nights so he could get some sense of relief from that, before glancing over his shoulder at the bickering. "Sometimes."
That glance made him miss one of his fellow bandits swinging a warhammer until it hit him in the gut. Though all that really did was make the big man grunt before he locked eyes with his assailant and grabbed the hammer with one hand while the other punched, leaving him standing with a hammer that looked comically small in his hand.
"On your right."
Weiss spun and quickly raised Myrtenaster and parried the dagger aimed at her chest. The woman wasn't alone as another with spiked gauntlets punched at her, only for Weiss to sidestep and slash her back. The daggers came back and the heiress blocked the quick succession of attacks before she made an opening and thrust her longer blade into the woman's shoulder, delivering a shallow wound but one that would keep her from attacking much. A quick slash that was only skin deep across her legs made sure she'd stay down.
Gauntlets came back but her strike was blocked by a glyph, one that soon turned black and repelled the woman with enough force that she slammed into a wall and slid down unconscious.
—-
"It seems that everyone has their dance partners, but we're just standing here." Cinder lifts her hands in an exaggerated shrug.
"Hmph, this is coming from the little girl whose ego is only matched by her waistline?" Raven smirks, patting her own hip for emphasis.
Cinder's smile melted into a scowl at that. "Just remember that I did give you the option of doing this peacefully." In a bright flash, a vial of sand was dropped from her sleeve, heated and reformed into a sword.
"And just how stupid do you think we are? You would have stabbed us in the back the moment the vault was opened." Raven counters as her hand rests on Omen.
"Now that we are at this point, no use in denying that I would have." Cinder shrugs as she steps onto the banister.
"Finally, some honesty from you. But what else should I have expected from a bitch who bows to a witch bitch?"
CLANG!
In a blink, Cinder had crossed the distance and slashed at the older Maiden. But just as quick, Raven had drawn her sword and blocked the strike. Not only that, but in contrast to Cinder's rage filled face, Raven was surprisingly calm, even mildly amused.
"Shut your mouth!"
"Maybe your ass would appreciate it if you would keep your mouth shut more often. Always flapping and-" Raven's joke was cut off as she had to focus a bit more as Cinder created a second sword in her left hand and began a furious barrage of attacks against her.
"RRRAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH!"
—-
Emerald hung back on the balcony as she was supposed to. There were moments that she had to duck from a stray bullet or two but otherwise she watched on with worry as she saw the once pristine entrance hall be torn and destroyed by the dozens of combatants all fighting at once.
Still, she had a job to do and she would remain loyal to Cinder and carry out the plan. Watts had created what seemed to be a foolproof plan, one with backups and multiple layers to help ensure that it would be successful. The Grimm attack at the main gate of the Kingdom and the White Fang at a secondary gate meant that any Huntsmen and soldiers were going to have their focus drawn to defending the walls. Even more of the White Fang had infiltrated Mistral ahead of the attacks and they would be covering their escape, even hold the school hostage for a while if things ever went awry.
The bandits and their new toys were to help even the odds should the team with Branwen obtain some form of reinforcements and become a distraction while the Spring Maiden takes the bait and comes to them, right into their trap. Soon enough, the upstarts would be put down and used as leverage against Raven to open the vault on her own.
Even the part of Vernal and Tater turning on the rest of the tribe was expected, figuring that sooner or later they would either figure out that the rest of the tribe was no longer following her orders. At some point, either they would lash out at the rest of the bandits or the bandits would take them out themselves. Apparently it was the former on that one.
Even with all of that going on, there were still more layers to the plan, ready to be used as needed. It was just up to Emerald to watch for when they were needed.
As for Leonardo, he was nearly catatonic as he watched his beloved school be destroyed from the inside. The earlier damage from the quick scuffle was bad enough, like a kick to the stomach. Now it was more comparable to having someone stomping on his chest and his spirit was breaking with every new hole in a wall. His only consolation was that there weren't any artifacts of true value in this hall, just replications while the real ones were in the Mistral museum or in the publicly known vault in Haven.
That didn't stop the tears from flowing down his cheeks, knowing that much of this was his fault.
—-
"I must say, My Lady, this is quite fascinating." Arthur was furiously writing notes on his observations even as he had several instruments recording what was happening in front of him.
"I'm glad you think so. Though I've attempted this more than a few times in the past, rarely has it been successful." Salem watched with her hands behind her back.
"And I'm assuming that I may be of assistance should the host begin to fail?"
"That would be ideal. I see you brought some supplies in case that would happen."
"You know how much I want to be prepared for any event."
Salem merely nodded slightly in response as she watched as the man screamed and thrashed against his bindings and the tar-like substance that Grimm are 'born' from.
"I've attempted this experiment with others, but this man may be the strongest I've started with. Good work on your capture of him."
"Thank you, Your Grace."
"You have questions?" She never took her eyes off her latest experiment.
"A few."
"You may ask."
Arthur made sure that his equipment were still recording before getting a new page. "You've done this before, what were the results?"
Salem's eyes closed as she recalled those moments in her long life. "Most did not survive even an incomplete fusion. Over time I found that it required a strong will to be moderately successful. The more skilled and determined the subject was, the better the results. I also had to focus on modifying the Grimm themselves to curb their destructive tendencies somewhat."
"Hmm… and you have had some successes then?" His hand was scribbling as fast as it could manage.
"Nothing that lasted long enough to be of true use to me. However, partial fusions have proven to be far more stable. They just need some… training and discipline to do well."
"Hmm… I see. The raw power of a Grimm combined with the sentience of a human or Faunus. Such a thing would prove to be a powerful addition to your forces."
"My thoughts exactly when I began to dabble in the creation of such a creature."
"And your successes?"
"On the rare occasion that the host survived the fusion, they generally failed when they were tested, a mere Beowolf could defeat them."
"You said generally. Then that means there were others who proved themselves."
"There were two of them. However, the first lasted a week before it consumed itself in a fit of madness. The other completed a series of tasks, each harder than the last, until…" Salem paused and not because of the man screaming in primal rage. "I sent it on a mission that proved too much for it, though if I had sent stronger Grimm or Acolytes with it, the task would have been successful. It nearly was with the beast grievously injuring the target but was killed by the man before it could deliver the final blow."
"I see." Watts was cut off as the tar enveloped the man's head and formed a mouth that screamed with the man inside. The new sound had a reverberating effect by the two voices speaking together. "Hmm… that's interesting." He jots the observation down on his original notepad.
The man continued to struggle and scream for an hour longer before his exhaustion allowed the Grimm to take over. On the table in front of Watts, a page with the man's information on it sat near the rest of the notes, the part that would stand out most is the name at the top: Farkas Lupin.
—-
"Are you sure we should be here?" Oscar asks as he and his friend snuck through the shadows near Haven Academy.
"Relax kid, I've been here plenty of times before. I could list off a few unique items in the Headmasters office for you to verify when we get there."
"That sounds… weird." Oscar gripped the cane in his belt tightly, he had seen a few shapes moving in the shadows that made him worried. "Maybe you read that in one of the books back at my aunts."
"These items wouldn't be in those books anyway." The man shrugs before coming to a corner and peeking around. His hand raised and began to count down, ending with a fist at zero at which point he spun around the corner and punched someone on the other side.
Oscar followed soon after to find a man wearing a uniform and mask of the White Fang. But it was what was in his hands that drew attention: a small bomb.
"Hmm… this thing is more powerful than it looks." Oscar looks to his friend as he examines the bomb. "Huh, funny thing with this type is that they are easy to deactivate, just pull a single wire and the whole thing is a dud… just like… this." He had slid his finger into a small gap where he hooked a wire and yanked, snapping the connection with surprising ease.
"They are that simple?"
"That's part of their charm, kid. There's no need to make it complicated when it's meant to be destroyed as its primary function."
"I see… Do you think there are more around?" Oscar begins looking around.
The taller man looked around and his eyes flashed gold for just a few moments as he did. "Yeah, there are others around. Looks like they got a few scattered around but most of them are at the CCT tower. Maybe we should make a little detour and stick to the shadows until we find the boss around here."
"You mean we're going to disarm the bombs?"
"You got it. Or would you rather risk any of them going off?"
"Oh, okay. Let's get going." Despite his nerves, there was a part of Oscar that was beginning to enjoy this experience. He was actually living out one of the fantastic stories that he thought he'd only find in a book.
AN: And there we have it, the fighting has officially begun for the fight for Haven! Meanwhile, the battle between the White Fang and the Menagerie Militia and the teams of ABRN and SSN is well underway and the White Fang seem to have the advantage right now. Things can only escalate now until the conclusion and for that you'll have to wait for the next installment.
Reviews are welcome, as always.