8 hours left…
A white room filled with chatter presents itself, a pair with an air of professionalism and firm speech equally exchanging their thoughts. A doctor in front of Winter checked over his clipboard filled with Winter's information.
Hospitals are very serious about serving their patients, Winter's simple condition was worse than anyone could've thought. The severity of the venom was more than enough to send her to a hospital for weeks, a consequence of Tyrian's attack being more than a 'scratch'.
Now, it was time. After a few days of observation, Winter's itch for being a Specialist couldn't be stopped.
"The pain has subsided and your Aura has made good progress in repressing any other problems. The venom has left your system but you may feel lingering psychological effects. I suggest that if you ever feel extended periods of nausea or pain in the initial entry wound, call a medic to treat you."
Winter firmly nods. "Thank you, Dr. Oleander. I'll be heading to my station as requested by the General."
Dr Orleander put away his clipboard and relaxed his posture as he leaned into his chair. "Specialist, there is no limit to staying in this facility for a case like yours. You can remain here if you think that there's going to be a problem in the future."
"I appreciate your concern but I have my duties as a soldier. I'll be taking my leave." Winter insisted.
"Before you go, someone named Qrow sent you a letter." Dr Orleander took out an envelope stuffed in his white coat pocket.
Winter eyed the paper with deep suspicion. "A letter? How did a man like him ever get literate enough to send a letter? I assume it's handwritten and not typed out, I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't even read it."
"...You know this man?" The doctor was now invested in this letter, the reaction from Winter just made him more curious.
Winter sharply takes a breath. "I know him as much as I know Grimm."
Her hand tears open the top of the letter with an unmatched amount of annoyance. Winter's eyes scan over the first line, there wasn't even a proper greeting.
Sup, you probably didn't expect me to write this huh?
'Of course not, who does he think he is? This writing is way too clean for him.' Winter snarked in her mind.
After this, you're going to say something like 'Oh, Qrow couldn't have written this!' In which case you're right! I had the smaller Ice Queen make it for me!
"That little…?!" Her words almost slipped a crude insult but refrained from doing so. "I'm going to have to tell Weiss to stay away from him at all costs."
Then I'll tell you that I actually wrote it! I can already imagine your face contorting in disgust, I'll let you know that I can write in cursive pretty well. Knowing that you thought Weiss was forced to write this in my name is funny.
'I'm going to kill him.'
It wasn't a promise, it was a statement of fact.
Feel free to burn this or whatever, the only reason I wrote this was to annoy you-
Winter tore the letter by accident, the crumpling being done by her fingers was too late for her to stop. Turns out holding back was a bit harder than she thought.
"Miss Schnee?" The doctor snapped Winter out of her unusual rage.
Winter unclenched her fists before returning to her typical stance. "That was unbecoming of me. The letter was just some nonsense written by a fool."
"A fool that made the effort to send you a letter?"
"Qrow always does this, such childish behaviour is fitting for a middle-aged oaf. My symptoms might already be coming back because of that. Tell the nurses that they have my appreciation." Winter turned to leave.
"Of course. I would say see you next time but a doctor wouldn't wish that upon his patients."
The door closed and one small chuckle escaped the doctor's mouth. "...So Ozpin was right. I wonder why flirting these days is as destructive and complex. If only people could be straightforward."
Winter set out with a pair of guards by her side, it was standard practice to be with escorts. Robots were out of the question for now, it was simply too risky after learning that the enemy had a plan to hack them. Sure they were safe since that was foiled but there's always the possibility.
Eventually, she reached a nearby centre for Bullheads and other VTOLs. It was typical for dozens of people to be there and it is being used by Atlas as well, serving as a way to move people to airships.
It was a few minutes, and Winter came to the discussion room of her personal airship. Waiting there was a man ranking decently high in the hierarchy of the military.
"Specialist, good to see you." The man greeted.
"Likewise, I've been briefed by the General already. Has the situation on the ground changed?" Winter went straight to the point, intending not to waste any more time that she'd seen as already being wasted.
The man cast his eyes downward. "No, our requests for additional manpower to aid in the search have been denied. Fear of riling the population when there are more boots marching in Vale."
"Way too much movement to easily hide from our enemies as well, I assume."
"Yes, the men are also exhausted after last night. We have cleared out many areas in search of these bombs. We limited our search zone based on an expert's assessment who we got in contact with."
"Expert? I never heard of us employing someone like that."
Surprised, the man points out, "The General said he knew you."
'That must be… I forgot we had a criminal on our payroll. So Torchwick is useful for moments like these.' Winter thought.
Winter asked further, "How far have you all gotten?"
The division commander looked at his scroll. "...Cleared out most of the areas in Vale where it would be at risk of injuring a large amount of people. All was done under disguise, as to avoid rumours."
"Have you conducted investigations as to how they got there in the first place?"
"Not yet."
"So I'll be the first one to start it as per my orders," Winter affirmed. "Arrange for people who can still fight with decent strength, I'll be asking around and investigating where the White Fang may be hiding."
"If I may ask, what will you do?"
"Gather information from cameras, there should be ones installed by shopowners or the city's public surveillance system. Sifting through that much footage is going to take a long time so I'll send those back to Atlas and let them go through it all. Then ask for suspicious activity, I'll be careful not to alert the enemy while doing so."
"I can ask the rank and file if anyone still has the energy to join you."
"Good."
Just as they were going to leave, Winter's scroll vibrated – prompting her to take a look at the caller's ID. "Weiss?" Winter looked up to her fellow soldier. "I'll take this, proceed with your task."
When Winter's subordinate left, Winter answered the call. "Sister, is there something wrong?"
Winter was almost deafened when the blare of high-pitched worry pierced her ears. "Sister, I just heard about your release! I would've waited alongside you but my friends held me up and-"
"Weiss." Winter strongly worded. "It's exactly 9:00 AM. Relax, I'm not going over there to reprimand you for not coming to see me. You've already dedicated more than enough time for the past weeks. It's time you appreciate someone other than me."
"O-okay, I'm sorry for-"
"Stuttering. Apologizing. Do you still remember what I said about those?"
"Of course!" Weiss straightened her posture in response despite Winter not being in the same room.
"So, why have you called me?"
"Well, dear sister… I wanted to tell you that I wanted to watch the finals with you. There's still going to be some loser bracket fights left, so we could go somewhere before that?"
Guilt racked Winter, truly, she wanted to go as much as possible. If only there weren't terrorists making her life a hundred times harder by denying her cute sister spent time.
Winter shook her head as her thoughts faded away. "I'm going to be very busy today."
"Oh…" Weiss' disappointment could be audible through a big exhale. "Sighing!" she called out to herself.
"Don't worry, I can understand your frustration."
"...Is there something going on for you to be busy?"
"Classified."
The conversation dulled at a stop but Weiss continued it after a few moments to think about it. "...Is father still being father?"
"Angry, bitter, nasty and any other words in the dictionary? Yes, Weiss. Especially after what you've done."
"What?! How did he know that I own SRCCO?"
"You should really remind yourself to hide secrets. Just because what I said is vague, doesn't mean you can inadvertently reveal something close to your heart. If it wasn't for me asking Ironwood myself, I would've been surprised that you're the real brains behind that company."
"Oh." Weiss felt her eyelids pulling towards the inside of her skull from slipping up.
"Oh indeed. That's only part of the reason why our father is acting more aggressively to everyone, being far from acquiring your little venture. Another reason for his rage is you not answering him whenever he calls. Still, I'm impressed that you found a way to grow further from father, not even I could completely stay away from him without needing his money."
"You can thank my friends for that. The tanks are the ones that helped me set up oil and coal extraction and research."
"Have you heard anything from them since father decided to do his utmost to inhibit your company?"
"...No?" It would be a lie if Weiss told Winter that she completely tracked the tanks' emotional state. "Usually they're very loud about their dissatisfaction, I guess they've learned to stay calm."
"There should be no guess without an anchor to hold it down, that kind of assumption without evidence to support it is unbecoming of you. A silent rage is more threatening than a loud outburst. That's something else to learn for you."
Being schooled by her older sister didn't dim Weiss' gratification. "I appreciate it, I will do better next time. Thanks for speaking with me, Winter."
"Always glad to be there for you, Weiss."
Wet.
Hot.
Mercury swore he wanted to reserve the use of those words for a gorgeous woman, not the terrain. "From dry and windy landscapes to a wet forest. Can this life get any worse?"
"Trying to annoy me instead of doing what we're supposed to do is getting old, Mercury."
Both of them wrestled the winding branches and vines, the recent downpour did not help in their mental state. Rather than a mission put forth, it was a punishment that trickled down from a gargantuan failure.
"Stop sucking up to Cinder, Em. We're out here in the Mistrali heat trying to find a needle in a haystack the size of an entire continent because of her colossal failure. Her plan was a bridge too far anyway."
"That's not true, her plan was elaborate enough to maybe bring success to everywhere in Remnant." Emerald tore through a bush with her weapons before Mercury replied in his usual argumentative tone.
"That's a lot of maybes in that plan, think you can give me a source for all that guesses? What's his name again? Arthur Watts. When he came here, he found a way to realistically deal with Cinder's problems. Not to mention he invented a VPN just to make it have a better chance of success."
"A what?" Emerald asked.
"Virtual Private Network sounds too long for the new thing he made for us. Watts said it best when he arrived to bail us all out, there are many ways to solve a problem but Cinder chose the most convoluted one."
"...What are you trying to do? Get a degree in philosophy? The only thing coming out of your mouth are the ramblings of a madman."
Mercury stopped walking, faced Emerald and steeled his eyes. "What I am trying to do, is cut off the sinking rock before it pulls us both down the ocean. I'm convincing you to help yourself before you inevitably get imprisoned or die. You and I haven't been collaborators for long but I know a useful asset when I see one. Cinder is done for, there's no telling what role we have now. Actually, I do. We are demoted to simply grunts trying to find some maiden in the middle of nowhere. The only guide we have are villages that may or may not have been already destroyed by Grimm."
"Then stop complaining so we can finish this like Cinder asked us. We aren't really in a position to demand anything from anyone. The bright side is that we won't have to work with any of that coward's puppets."
"You mean Leonardo? Hah, he's as much of a puppet as his dear students - well, what's left of them after he got told to double the pace of 'accidents'. Shoulda just sent them to look for this damn maiden rather than us."
"Look, it's going to be less effort than it needs to be if we just find her." Emerald and therefore Mercury both continued their excruciating trek.
"What are we going to do after we find the maiden? Kindly ask her to come with us?"
"Shh!"
They both stopped the moment Emerald called out a hush. All playful and downright hostile back-to-back talk ceased, Mercury slowed to a crouch as both of them examined the area. "Tracks?" Mercury saw trails of mud leaving various marks.
Mercury investigated closer while Emerald watched his back. "Humans, a lot of them, maybe Faunus. Either another branch of the White Fang or bandits came here with a lot of equipment too, trucks with how the marks are evenly spaced. Looks like not following the roads can be beneficial."
"I wonder whose idea that was?" Emerald asked sarcastically.
"Yours, now do I need to do a standing ovation or what?" Pointing in a specific direction, Mercury states, "That way."
Their reasonably easy progress made Emerald suspicious, it was one thing to check the least obvious. Usually, people watch out for what's out of place, those are usually not directly seen at first glance.
"Hey, are you sure that they left?" The thief asked, readying her weapons.
"Why?"
"Didn't it rain earlier? Tracks would've been cleared the moment that happened if they left a while ago… meaning these are recent. Very recent, like they just left less than a minute ago."
*Ker-chak*
"Darn." Mercury was half-annoyed and half-surprised.
All around them, bandits encircled their position. Mercury and Emerald kept their cool, eyeing each of the assailants with a keen mind.
"When you're tailing someone, it's kind of a requirement to be silent when you do so." One of the bandits taunted. His weapon choice was a flintlock pistol of all things, Mercury had to stifle a laugh.
"Haha! We weren't trailing you. Anyways, tell us who you work for." Mercury cricked his neck before putting his hands in his pockets.
"We'll be here to ask the questions." Another nameless bandit cut in.
"I'm not asking."
"Grimm!" One of them screams. Yet when everyone turned to where the bandit pointed, nothing was there at all.
Smirking, Emerald took half of the group, about five, to battle. While Mercury took the rest like it was a pre-planned counterattack. Their cooperation was amazing despite not exchanging any words.
Mercury took a bullet to the chest, revealing his aura to the men. They all left themselves exposed when Emerald created an illusion for one of the bandits, leaving Mercury to fight with not much seriousness.
"They're huntsmen!"
Mercury replied. "Sorry, but I'm not one of them. We're just a bunch of rejects in society."
Twirling in the deep mud, Mercury roundhoused another grunt before using the guns built into his prosthetic legs to kill a few of them. Meanwhile, Emerald shot and sliced, just as Mercury was finishing up his section of the fight.
Reduced to one man who cowered from fear, Mercury approached the stumbling grunt with a smile etched on his face. Punting the man with a solid hit from his feet, Mercury stepped harshly on the remaining man's sternum he told him, "You've got around thirty seconds to answer."
"Don't kill me! We're just the rear guard!"
Mercury couldn't care less about that, he was asking a different question. "Aren't the rear guard supposed to be the best amongst the army? That's what I get for expecting anything more than a bandit tribe. Who the heck trained these people?"
"I did, well, not exactly trained."
Freezing under the killing intent, Emerald swore she saw a shadow from the trees travelling faster than she could've ever seen. Only a shimmer from a large blade left the darkness. Fortunately for Mercury, maybe unfortunately for Emerald, Mercury was alive but clearly had a small wound from a strike that could've been lethal if not for his quick reaction honed from childhood training.
Emerald quickly aimed her weapons at the threat. "You just had to run your mouth, Merc."
The bandit on the ground crawled to the imposing figure. "Leader! We're so-"
*BANG*
Both Mercury and Emerald remained indifferent to the sudden death. A pistol shot to the back of the head, not by the 'leader' but by another person to their side.
"The weak do not have a place in our tribe. They're newbloods from a raided village a couple of days ago who decided to beg us to join. Now, the reason why we put them in the most dangerous and riskiest position in the convoy, it serves as training. Nothing taught can be as better as trial by fire, does that answer your question?"
Mercury tried to keep his confidence, lest he'd get the same fate. He knew the grunts were probably weak but the leader was on a completely different level. "When getting chased by an Ursa, you don't need to outrun the Ursa, you just need to outrun the slowest person. Maybe that's why you let the weak stay behind you, who's the real coward in that case?"
"Are you being cocky or brave?"
Emerald interrupted. "Unfortunately for him, he's neither. Mercury is an idiot. Graduated with top honours and given a master's in Philosophy with a minor in Losing Braincells. We're not here to fight if that's what you think. Just leave us on our way and there won't be feathers ruffled."
"Fighting talk only to back down? That's not what your friend is eager in."
Mercury rebuked. "No, I'm just showing what I can do. I thought you hated seeing weak people?"
It was a terrible state of luck, they were only tasked to find people or villages to wander around for. It was their punishment and it was clearly doing its job of being one.
They had no lead and had to walk aimlessly, hoping to get a maiden training out in the woods or something. The two would've never thought they'd be fighting an entire group of bandits.
The leader was amused by Mercury's daring gamble, they saw her blade being retracted and sheathed back. The rest of the bandits followed their example and put away all their weapons. Maybe acting cocky had its merits at times.
"Raven Branwen. If we're going to talk then an introduction is a good start."
The assassin replied, "Mercury Black and the bundle of fun behind me is Emerald Sustrai. We're looking for someone, care to give us a hint?"