Kieffner's POV
He raised his sword to block an incoming strike. Thankfully Adam was holding back significantly, and allowed the necromancer to parry.
"Vale is gone, Atlas is gone, and the Grimms are gone. The last two will come back eventually, but we've got ourselves some breathing room." Kieffner explained while trying to recall the proper footwork to move backwards.
"We can't afford to remain passive any longer." Adam began. He stabbed his sword in the empty space next to Kieffner's skull, making him stubble in the process.
"For one we don't have enough dust for another battle. Most of our remaining stocks somehow disappeared when I was in Vale."
Kieffner nervously chuckled. This brief moment had allowed him to recover and get back into his stance.
"Who knows what happened in the chaos of battle ? You shouldn't worry about it."
"Whatever." Adam swung his sword sideways. His opponent blocked the attack, but was still unbalanced by the force behind it.
"Deflect whenever possible. Hold your sword at an angle, that will be enough most of the time."
Kieffner applied those words. The next blow was similar, but the blocking weapon was bent inwards now. Adam's blade slid up and lost all its momentum by the time the two swords broke contact.
"The fact remains that we only have weapons without ammo now. We did manage to scavenge some food, but it won't last forever." The faunus said while nodding, acknowledging the undead's progress.
"I suppose you're right. But finding dust and excavating it will take time, time that we may not have." Kieffner pointed out.
"You can always just trade for it." Adam pointed out, after which he aimed for his partner's torso with a direct strike.
The undead barely moved, in something that might be mistaken for breathing. However this was enough to prevent the incoming blade from hitting anything, instead harmlessly sliding between two ribs. Adam clasped his tongue and pulled his blade out.
"How ? We don't have anything to sell, and I doubt anyone will be willing to do affairs with us. I'm an undead and you're an international criminal, are you not ?"
Adam made a literal low blow, his blade practically touching the ground as it swung towards Kieffner's right leg. The latter reacted as best he could, even if protecting his left side was harder as a right-handed. But just as he began to move his sword in position, Adam redirected his aim way higher, almost like a golf swing. The necromancer couldn't react in time and got hit in the face by the flat side of the blade.
"I prefer the term dissident, or even terrorist, but fair enough. Also, you're probably in the same boat at that point." Adam stopped to lend a hand to Kieffner to help him get up after that last attack.
"My point is, we do have something to sell, something you've been producing constantly for a few months now."
"Weapons ? Who's gonna buy guns without ammo ?" Asked the undead after once again entering a fighting stance.
"Those with too much dust of course. Coincidentally also those we're trying to get dust from."
They exchanged a few light blows, but the conversation was now too distracting for anything more.
"Of course, that makes sense... Do you know anyone who would be willing to trade with me ?"
"Well, I still have some contacts in Mistral and Menagerie. Vacuo is always open for business, but it would take us too close to the Grimm continent. I would rather not risk it."
"That settles the question then. What about Atlas and the Grimms ? We have to deal with them one way or another."
"The White Fang still exists in Atlas. With the right opportunity, we should be able to deal with this issue in a permanent way."
"An opportunity ?" Kieffner rubbed his bony shin for a moment.
"What do you need ?"
Adam mimicked the start of his earlier faint.
"A diversion. I need the atlesian air fleet out of the picture. Weapons too, would greatly facilitate the operation."
"Give me both, and in a few weeks I will bring Atlas to its knees."
"40 Lien for a single fish ? You've got to be kidding me !" Yelled a middle-aged faunus man to an atlesian shopkeeper.
"You have to understand, these are difficult times. Everything has become more expensive since the destruction of Vale, we can't afford to keep our old prices." The shopkeeper replied.
"Understand !? What I understand is that I don't make enough money to feed my family !"
A SDC security guard passed by and intervened.
"Leave that man alone, faunus."
The faunus' name, Doss Diamond, was written on his nameplate.
"If you need money you will just have to work longer. Everyone has to make sacrifices during those trying times."
'Coming from a guy who never had to sacrifice a single meal.' Thought the faunus. However he wasn't stupid enough to voice that in front of an armed dog of the SDC.
He simply nodded, and waited for the guard to go away. Once he did, the faunus turned back to the shopkeeper and bought what he could with his meager savings.
"Things cannot go on like this forever." He muttered, to the seller or himself, he did not know.
With his pickaxe in one hand and what food he could buy in the other, the miner slowly walked through the camp, trying not to think about the future.
He soon reached his co-workers' common room. Even from outside he could already hear his sister speaking passionately.
When he entered, all eyes turned towards him. A little over a dozen faunus were gathered there. They all saw the despair painted on his face.
"What's going on ? Has something happened ?" Asked his son.
"They raised the price of food. Again. Clothing and dust too."
"This winter is going to be harsh." One of the oldest among them sombrely stated.
"Harsh ! Some of us won't make it ! Harsh is a nice way to put it..." Exclaimed Lisa, Doss' sister.
"Things could be worse. We will pull through this winter as a community, like all those before it." The old one slowly spoke.
"And each time we grow weaker and weaker ! Eventually things will be at their worst, what will we do then ?" Doss intervened on the side of his sister.
"They even increased the price of dust ! The very dust we extract with our sweat and tears ! Do you all realize how ridiculous this all is ?" His sister continued.
"When you put it that way..." Someone in the group muttered.
"The price of our work certainly did not increase." His neighbor grumbled.
"Tell me, do any of you have enough money to afford the trip back home ?" Lisa asked.
The crowd stood silent.
"They claim that we're free workers, that we're not being forced to do anything. The fact is that we're stuck here. The fact is that none of us can afford to stop working even for one day, lest we fails to buy our next few meals. The slightest missed quota, the slightest disobedience is enough to lose our only job here."
"Being forced to follow orders under the threat of starvation, of homelessness, of eventual death, what would you call that other than slavery ?"
"What freedom is there for those who go about hungry, I ask you ? Our people lay in misery, always haunted by the fear of tomorrow being deprived of work, of home and of bread. At this rate we all won't be able to make ends meet. How long before having to choose between food or shelter ? When will our brothers and sisters start falling asleep in the cold, only to never wake up ? How many replacements from Mantle will we have to greet ? How many of them will we witness falling into despair ?"
"What I mean to say, what I truly want you to remember, is that things cannot go on like this forever. We have to act soon, or our future will be forever taken from us. The time has come to reclaim tomorrow."
Once Lisa finished her speech, the room stayed completely silent for a few seconds, a few very long seconds. Then someone started clapping, her brother. His son quickly followed. Her brother's best friend joined in. One by one their started clapping, until the room was drowned by thunderous applause.
Roman's POV
The day would probably come when atlesian security started to take semblances into account. But that day had not yet come.
Nobody stopped him, or even noticed him as he strolled through the airship's tight corridors. While he thought that everyone ought to see his daring exploits, there were times like these that made him very thankful to know Neo.
He wasn't unable to handle his own however, as demonstrated when he had swiftly borrowed his jailer's keys. The old man didn't notice anything when the weight suddenly left his belt, nor when Roman opened a nearby locker containing his belongings.
Once done, he looked back one last time. A fake Roman was still sitting on the iron bed, something he definitely wouldn't be missing. On the other hand, the jailer was pretty cute in his attempts to intimidate a world-famous gentleman thief like himself.
Back to the corridor, Roman could see Neo visibly strain under the pressure of maintaining two separate illusions at an increasingly great distance from each other. He hurried his steps, the exit was close.
He heard Neo snapping her tongue. Barely a few seconds later, an alarm started blaring.
"A prisoner has escaped. To all personnel, remain at your post and stay vigilant. Report anything suspicious to the commanding center." Said a voice coming out of a nearby loudspeaker. A picture of Roman then appeared on most screens he could see, with the same message as before written under his face.
Soldiers instantly began to rush somewhere, running past the duo without noticing them. Neo's semblance still worked here, thankfully.
The airship shook as its reactor turned on. It would soon take off to prevent their escape, they had little time left. The duo got past a corner and finally saw the exit.
"And... It's closed. Of course it is."
The massive steel doors they were supposed to use in their escape were completely closed. Even with his or Neo's weapon, they wouldn't be able to get past something weighing twice their combined weights.
Neo looked at him expectantly.
"Give me a moment please, I will come up with something."
His mind worked in overdrive even as the rumbling increased. They wouldn't have enough time to look for another exit, even if they weren't all closed. They couldn't destroy that door, and it had no lock to pick. It was probably controlled from the ship's command center.
"Keep up your illusion. They have eyes everywhere." He asked Neo. This made him realize something. It was very likely that the Atlesians also had a camera on the other side of the door. He looked around and noticed a reinforced window looking outside. He might just have a plan.
Roman moved to the window and took a look outside. He couldn't see the door itself, but the snow-covered ground before it would do.
"Neo, I need you to create an illusion of me outside. You have to get their attention, and make them open the door to try to catch me."
Neo nodded and soon got to work creating a believable fake Roman. She modeled him as being injured and crawling on the ground, probably to give whoever checked the cameras time to notice him.
It only took a few minutes for a dozen soldiers to get to their isolated corner of the airship. The sound of the soldiers' leather boots hitting the ground echoed through the narrow corridors, warning the duo well in advance.
The two scrambled into a corner, trying to avoid physical contact even as Neo maintained an illusion over them. The guards rushed past, and opened the door.
In a few seconds the squad got out, spread in a half-circle around the fake Roman, and aimed their rifles at him.
"Drop your weapon and get on the ground !"
'He's already crawling on the ground you dumbass.' Thought Roman as his fake was being cornered. Credit where it was due, Neo perfected her art to the point that none of the soldiers noticed that something was wrong.
Roman and Neo moved out themselves, and the latter's illusionary sphere instantly got hit by the harsh northern wind. Despite the cold, sweat began to accumulate on the girl's forehead as she did her best to keep up the illusion with the addition of an uncountable amount of snowflakes hitting her semblance.
As another proof of her mastery, Neo managed to get rid of every snowflake colliding on her illusion by enveloping them with another layer, dissolving the first and letting them fall inside the perimeter afterwards. However this also meant that none of those snowflakes got out from the other side. She did try to remedy that problem, but that was beyond her capabilities.
Roman helped the girl walk as she scowled and grit her teeth under the pressure.
"It's alright Neo. I believe in you, you can do it. Just a little longer..." Roman tried to say over the sound of the increasingly raging snowstorm.
It was at this moment that one of the soldiers kicked the fake Roman to get him to hurry up. The illusion immediately broke into a thousand glass-like shards.
"Fuck ! It's a trap !" Yelled one of the Atlesians, probably an officer.
Roman and Neo did their best to hurry up, but the tall snow did little to help. The officer looked around, trying to find anything unusual. His glare passed over the duo, and stopped. His brows furrowed.
"Neo..." Roman whispered.
The officer threw a grenade behind them.
"Get down !"
He pulled Neo to the ground less than a second before the grenade exploded. The illusion instantly collapsed under the blast, but most of the latter passed over them. What little hit the duo was absorbed by their aura.
Before the soldiers had time to react, Roman aimed his weapon at the officer and shot him. The bright flare-like projectile hit its target right in the chest. The force of it threw the man back to the point that he ended up on the other side of his men's circle.
"Alright Neo, we're doing this the hard way." Roman said. However, Neo had already lunged at the nearest soldier while he was speaking.
The thief let out a mildly irritated groan, before joining his partner. His aura easily absorbed every incoming bullet. Those men were probably supposed to fight Grimms. Well mistakes happened, as long as they weren't his.
An aura-enhanced cane to the head was enough to knock out the nearest soldier, and the one facing Neo fared even worse. She actually used her weapon's hidden blade to put the man down.
They went through the rest just as easily, like a hot knife through butter. In around a minute the fighting was already over.
"Is that all your mighty army can do ?" Roman monologued as his enemies laid defeated and, in a few cases, dead.
"Where are your oh so legendary specialists ?"
"They're right there." Said a womanly voice behind him. Roman first noticed Neo's glare, seeming to say 'Did you really have to say that ?' before turning around and recognizing his new opponent.
"Well if it isn't the famous Winter Schnee herself. What made you grace us with your presence ?"
"Your crimes against mankind to begin with. And the fact that you have made the mistake of annoying me. Prepare to die."
Roman frantically gestured to Neo behind his back. They had to get out of there. That fight, if they even won it, would still give additional atlesian reinforcements time to arrive. This wasn't a loop he wanted to get into.
Neo seemed to get the message. Now they only had to make their escape smooth. When Winter attacked, her rapier in hand, she used her semblance to create a glyph under her feet, greatly enhancing her speed. She crossed the distance between them in under a second, and grazed Roman's head with her blade.
The thief didn't activate his aura, so as to allow for their plan to work. He wasn't as nimble as Neo, but still managed to avoid Winter's attacks by giving ground.
Meanwhile the specialist almost got decapitated when Neo suddenly appeared from behind, but raised her aura in time to block it. A good chunk of her aura reserves were depleted by this, but she nonetheless continued fighting.
"You are fools..." Winter stated after taking a few steps back to get out of immediate danger.
"You can't win against Atlas, even if you defeat me. There are hundreds like me. You won't escape justice forever." The specialist didn't seem convinced by her own words.
Roman burst out laughing. "You seem to be mistaken, the two of us aren't soldiers. We don't win by defeating all of you. We win by getting away every time."
Just as he said that, he heard another squad rushing down the nearby corridor.
"Well, looks like you won't get away this time." Winter claimed, her confidence returning.
Roman and Neo both smirked.
"Oh, but we already have."
And they both shattered in a thousand shards
Ruby's POV
The trip to patch was uneventful and done in complete silence. They landed on the island with their scavenged Bullhead. No one was there to greet them. It wasn't like they could have warned anyone after Vale's CCTS tower got disabled.
But even then, the island's inhabitants had the habit of welcoming newcomers. You could always find a few curious people, looking for gossips or just wanting to know what foreigners were doing here.
The streets were empty as the team walked through Patch's only town. All the windows had either their flaps closed or curtains drawn. A few even had planks nailed over them.
Ruby catched a glimpse of an old woman at a window, but she soon disappeared. After a few minutes, a man entered the street and faced them. The man's blue eyes were sunken, his blond hair was dirty and his clothes torn. Yet there was no mistaking his identity.
"Dad !" Ruby yelled.
For the first time in gods knew how long, her voice was filled with joy.
"Let's head home, I believe we have much to talk about."
The group followed Taiyang on the empty street, walking in silence between the hauntingly abandoned buildings. There was an oppressive air around, like an unknown presence was watching them, barely out of sight. The girls barely dared to breathe, and it was only when they finally left the town that this anxious atmosphere somewhat subdued.
"Why was the town like that ?" Blake finally asked.
"Grimm attacks exploded after Vale's fall, and I'm the only Huntsman left on Patch."
"At first it was just a shepherd going missing. We investigated of course, but before we were even done, an entire group of construction workers had disappeared."
"The cases multiplied, and eventually Huntsmen and guards went missing too. It's almost certainly a new kind of Grimm, one we weren't prepared to deal with. Now people are trying their best to cut themselves from the outside world. An attempt to avoid anything that could trigger negative emotions. Or to avoid being noticed."
"Some of those houses were definitely empty." Weiss remarked.
"Many people choose to leave as time went on. I wasn't able to protect all those that stayed. I'm not even sure who remains, the few I'm still in contact with are increasingly disturbing. Mumbling about whispers in the dark, a calling to somewhere else..."
"That's horrible..." Blake whispered, her imagination running wild.
"What about Signal ? How are the students doing ?" Ruby asked.
"Most left for Atlas or Mistral, trying to do their part in the great picture. I trained the rest as best as I could, but it wasn't enough..." Taiyang's eyes were empty as he answered.
"Is that your house ?" Blake asked as they approached the Xiao Long household.
"It looks ... not so good." Weiss said after failing to come up with a better word.
The house wasn't exactly in a worse state than the others. There were spider webs and dust everywhere. At least the windows weren't plastered with planks.
"I haven't spent much time here recently, but it should still be safe." Taiyang muttered as they entered. He pulled a broom out of somewhere and cleant the living room, just enough for clothes not to get dirty by sitting on the couch.
They all took a seat, and Taiyang immediately asked the most dreadful question of them all.
"Where's Yang ?"
Ruby exploded in tears.
Her father first instinctively reached for the girl to console her, before the implication of her reaction hit him. This made him stop for a second, after which he embraced his daughter in a hug.
"I understand."
Ruby sobbed in silence. Her father's arms were shaking. He hugged harder to stop the feeling. Just like Ruby's mother, he wasn't even there when it happened. He kept holding his daughter, as if letting her go would make her slip away into nothingness.
"It's been over a month, you know. Since the fall of Vale, since you've all been declared missing." Taiyang whispered. Ruby was close enough to hear it all.
"I kept hoping, praying for you to be safe. But I tried to prepare myself for the worst. I didn't want my hopes to be crushed. Not again." He ended in a whisper, staring at a decade old family portrait on the other side of the room.
Hi everyone. This chapter took a long time to come out. I was just extremely lazy during those last months tbh. Still, I'm trying to keep this fic alive as best as I can.
I'm still trying to come up with believable ways for the mc to learn more magic, while avoiding all the more game breaking stuff.
As always, thank you for reading this chapter. Please leave a comment, I read all of them.