Thirty minutes before the blast.
High fives of varying enthusiasm were shared all around when Cardin emerged victorious from the duel, barely able to contain himself.
"Told you so, told you so!" The ginger team leader chanted over and over,
Co'Balt started to grumble, "Never mind Arc being smug, how are we gonna shut you up?"
Jaxon held out a handful of lien in a low pass to Dove, "Just remember we don't have anywhere to hide the body bro."
That remark shut Cardin's mouth, who then looked at Jaxon slightly perplexed. The lion Faunus didn't bat an eye staring straight at Cardin, arms crossed and silent. Kad broke the awkward stale mate, "That was a joke buddy."
"Tell you something actually funny," Cardin said grinning once again, "The look on Jaune's face when Nikos went down."
"Won't be so funny if you have to fight the guy who did it next."
The ginger boy turned paler than usual. "Thanks for that thought."
"I'm here to help."
With nothing else to wait for Kad, Jaxon, and Co'Balt left the two members of CRDL and began to walk a circuit around the arena's first floor, with none of them waiting to duel they set their minds on other plans. Walking the grey white halls lit by harsh industrial light bars. But it wasn't long before they were found by their final teammate Alicia. Which at least Jaxon found surprising as they ran into the rusty haired Huntress loitering by a tall glass side entrance door in another wall of floor to ceiling windows all alone.
"Well," the lion Faunus said, "What brings you to this neck of the woods?"
Alicia took a breath, "I'm still your teammate. I actually want to see you guys from time to time."
"Shocking," Co'balt added,
Alicia shrugged "It's better than sitting around all day because Sage volunteered to hang with Scarlet."
"Fair enough," Co'Balt admitted, "We were about to head out to town. Care to join us."
She waved to the exit with a smile, "Where are we going?"
"Weapon shop," Co'Balt told her, "I need some shit."
"Do you think we can stop by the entertainment district? I have some music albums waiting."
"You didn't just have them shipped to beacon?" Co'Balt asked raising an eyebrow,
Alicia shook her head, "Not these you dolt."
Kad interrupted them, "They're are kind of far apart. I don't know if we have time to do both before,"
Jaxon tapped his back, "I'll go with her, we'll cover more ground."
Alicia slapped him on the shoulder playfully, "Thanks Jax," grateful to see some camaraderie return.
The yellow wearing Faunus half smiled in shyness for a moment, "I realize we haven't been the greatest teammates as of late,"
"Nobody's perfect," Alicia told him as she took a step through the door and swung around behind it holding the portal open for the rest of her team,
One question came to the giant's mind as he perused the many rows of killing tools on sale in this little downtown establishment, "What's wrong with your old ax?"
Co'Balt looked away from the floating blue information screen by the sales desk up at his leader. His purchases in a plastic bag by his feet already bought and paid for,
"Nothing," The Faunus said, "But it pays to keep an open mind right?"
"I guess," Kad replied, "But I think it would be too much trouble to change your fighting style."
"Not really," Co'balt answered with a shrug, "Bash and move on pretty much. That translates to a lot of things."
"Yeah," Kad picked up an unadorned pole of wood that was almost as tall as he was then turned to Co'Balt, "What do think is better reach or hitting power."
"You've got both to spare,"
"Maybe I'm keeping an open mind too."
"Well, I guess you know it depends," Co'Balt said as he ran his fingers along a rack of weapon magazines and catalogues, arrayed near the huge glass window at the front of the shop, "You either just keep away, jabbing. Or you really lay em out and down for a while with one good shot."
He mimed a two handed swing for reference as he turned back to the giant,
"Yep," Kad agreed as he looked over a low table of various styles of machine guns.
Co'Balt was curious now, "Why? Are you thinking of adding some gun to your gear."
"No, I told you. I feel you just sacrifice too much with all these contraptions of guns, and guns and guns. Or I'm going to bend or break something whacking a gun around like a great sword. Take one or the other, that'll do." He explained waving away Co'Balt's questions.
"Mine works fine."
"Then what are we doing here?"
The Faunus looked up and out the window. Kad had him with that, and Co'Balt suddenly realized he was wasting his time, "I hate it when you get all philosophical."
"It's a gift."
"Classics eh?"
Alicia shot a glare at Jaxon "I thought we agreed you just have bad taste."
"No, I just like music from this decade. Hell even the one before if I'm in a good mood," Jaxon elaborated, "Or are these for your grandpa?"
She ignored him, flipping through the small plastic cases in her hand one more time to make sure that she had received everything she had paid for. Jaxon looked outside beyond the racks of large records and smaller discs, through the gilded lettering plastered over the tinted window. Studying the clouds and looking for anything interesting to him. Kad told them to be quick, but in Jaxon's opinion, that meant they would just go back to standing around not knowing what to do only all together now.
The Faunus had other plans.
Even though Alicia wasn't his partner directly relationships in teams lasted for a long time after school, he wanted to spend a little bit of time mending and building bridges with the girl. So he wasn't going to press her to hurry up. The day was still young. And they could have a nice long chat as they walked back to the stadium.
The streets weren't as packed as Kad expected them to be, there were still banners for the Vytal festival strung up all over the roads and store fronts. But there were fewer people out than any other time he had walked through the old looming houses of the cityscape of Vale.
He couldn't explain it if anyone asked, but Kad sensed something.
It put him on edge.
The giant and the young bull Faunus had made good progress back towards the arena. Uninterrupted, they would be back inside of five minutes once they crossed the river.
And Kad would feel better once he had his team back again.
Being cramped up in one place for a long time would never ever be on Alicia's list of top ten things to do. Even Beacon was beginning to become intolerable, the same faces day in day out even with the additional exchange students and visitors adding a little variety to school life. She needed to get out. And Jaxon seemed to be up for anything at the moment, so he didn't protest when Alicia took a few circuitous turns through the city. Making their slog just a little bit longer.
They stopped at a red corner news stand one of many scattered all over Vale. Empty except for its elderly owner staring out into the equally empty cross roads and sidewalks. The old man smiled down at the two young Hunters. Jaxon picked up a newspaper and paid quickly then the two of them leaned up against the counter and struck up a conversation with the man behind it. Exchanging gossip about events in town for news on the tournament standings and expectations.
An unmarked limousine passed behind them. Neither Jaxon nor Alicia cared enough to take a closer look even as the wind picked up in the wake of the luxury car, pushing their hair and loose edges of clothing to the side.
Almost exactly sixty seconds later, all hopes of a normal day were blown away.
In the deafening clap of thunder from down the road.
Jaxon and Alicia stumbled throwing up their arms to protect their eyes as a wave of pressure swept up and knocked them off balance. Jaxon could only hear ringing, and ringing. He clutched his Faunus ears in pain. Bent over grinding his teeth as the unbearable noise reached a peak. Alicia grabbed Jaxon by the shoulders from behind and tried to get him up and re-oriented.
Every window in every building surrounding the epicenter of this blast had been shattered. Glass covered the sidewalks, the echo bounced to the edge of the city and then rolled back to where it started before the noise finally began to die down. If either teammate could have truly focused for a minute they would have heard the first sirens beginning to wail. As the response from the city got under way.
Jaxon wiped his face and let himself be straightened up by Alicia. He could barely even think with the buzzing and ringing going down through his skull and tightly clenched teeth. He blinked briefly, Alicia was speaking to but he could only see her talking.
She asked him again, "Can you hear me?"
After trying to read her lips for a moment tuning out her dulled voice Jaxon shook his head no. They both looked down the street. A whole intersection had been demolished in the blink of an eye.
Sidewalks, pavement, the limo, power poles, traffic signals, rubble, stone and ruined pipes all mashed together in a twisted wreck down below what once was a road. Several buildings barely held on the edge. More rocks tumbled down constantly and water slowly pooled in the middle from a large sewer pipe that had been severed.
Alicia grabbed Jaxon's forearms and shook him once.
"Come on," She demanded, "Snap out of it."
The Faunus shook his dirty blond hair back and forth then held up clenched fists letting out a sigh as his senses calmed down.
"I'm good" he told his teammate. She smiled a little before responding,
"Alright come on." Alicia said, moving down the street towards the scene of this disaster.
Jaxon's eye brows shot up, and his ears flattened down in surprise, "Towards the big fuckoff hole?"
"Yes, jeez, we're here let's check it out. It's what a Hunter would do."
His comeback only consisted of a few grumbles, but he took the initiative and pass ahead of Alicia up to the edge of the pit to survey the damage. It was a mess, neither could see any sign of people trapped, but any number of bystanders could have been lost below the rubble. A brief flash of white caught Alicia's eye.
Weiss had recovered faster than both her sister and father, all the physical training Beacon had toughened her up far more than her old lifestyle had.
She looked around the car, the floor was angled down so it took her a moment to orient. Winter was trapped in her seat, head hanging down with blood flowing from a gash on her scalp. Weiss grabbed onto the handle of the door she entered through and pulled herself up to her twin. She gently pressed two fingers into Winter's neck checking for a pulse. She sighed in relief when she felt it still going strong. Her sister moaned and squirmed a tiny bit but she remained incoherent and trapped.
Her father was lying still down at the bottom of the divider between the driver's compartment and theirs. Weiss saw his chest rise and fall indicating the head of the Schnees was still among the living.
All the tinted windows were cracked and covered in grime, Weiss had no idea what had happened. She cast her mind back to those few seconds that already seemed like an eternity ago and just drew a white ringing blank.
She looked to the doors. One was facing the ground and would be impossible to open. The eldest heiress didn't feel strong enough to try and break through the windows so she grabbed the handle on the entrance facing the sky.
It pulled back smoothly and Weiss attempted to push on the door, it moved a hairs breadth up but no more. Weiss moved closer and threw her shoulder against the stubborn door.
She cried out in exertion but made zero progress. She was trapped.
Two thuds broke through the silence making Weiss flinch. But she relaxed when two muffled voices called from the outside.
Together Alicia and Jaxon jumped down into the crater when they saw the side door on the limo move as whoever was trapped attempted to break free and drew the young Hunter's attention. Alicia broke their fall on a glyph halfway down then they leapt again onto the hood of the limo.
"Shit…" Jaxon said simply,
Alicia nodded in agreement, "Hello? Anyone?" she called out while crouching down to get a closer look. A muffled voice responded but Alicia couldn't understand the words.
The windshield was covered in junk layered on junk. Blocking any way out, Jaxon attempted to open the front passenger door to check on the drivers while Alicia moved through the debris back to the rear. Eyeing up the large but narrow slab of sidewalk was weighing down the door.
She recognized the shrill voice calling for help. When the door moved again Alicia snaked the fingers of her left hand into the gap pulled up, and braced her right on the side of the car. The heiress's eyes went wide in surprise when she recognized her potential savior.
"Nice running into you Ice Queen." Alicia managed to joke.
Pale blue eyes that once were incredulous, now narrowed in annoyance.
"What's blocking this?" Weiss asked, and emphasized her question by striking the door with her right palm.
"Stuff," Alicia replied, "Give us a moment. Jaxon!"
He was pretty sure the two drivers were dead. One had his rib cage wrapped around the steering wheel and the other on the passenger side had a fair chunk of his fore ward skull missing. Blood stains were all over their cheap suits and each had a certain stillness he recognized.
Jaxon looked up at his teammate's call. She waved and curled her fingers gesturing for him to come closer. He pulled himself up onto the roof of the limo, but stopped as something landed next to the brown haired girl and immediately began spewing smoke.
Alicia inhaled a mouthful of the gas and immediately felt drowsy. Her eyelids fluttered and all the strength in her arms and legs vanished. The occupants of the limo were spared from the worst of the gas cloud for the time being. Jaxon halted dead in his tracks out of breathing range for now and looked up higher in the pit to where the grenade had come from.
Thick clouds of the same substance were billowing out of a large exposed sewer tunnel. Jaxon held his breath as he witness the fate of Alicia, slumped down next to the limo coughing and fighting to stay awake.
Armed figures materialized out of the smoking mist. Gas masks and white bone replicas obscured their faces, and Jaxon's blood chilled as he recognized the white and black uniforms of the White Fang, marching into this pit with violence in their hearts. As the clouds flowed out filling more and more of the space Jaxon's heart felt like it was tearing in two. He wasn't prepared for a fight, but his friend was down there and he could picture what would happen if he let these goons get to her.
He reached behind him and took Uzipho into his right hand. Jaxon was cursing himself with all his might since he hadn't brought any real bullets with him to the tournament that morning. He didn't want to accidently get training rounds mixed up with live ones so he just loaded his pockets with rubber projectiles. But he was far from completely helpless.
His left hand tucked inside of his yellow jacket and came out with a long curved sickle knife six inches long. The approaching White Fang didn't have any guns out at the moment but that was not any comfort to Jaxon. His ears rotated at the sounds of sirens coming closer but he forced his attention back on the approaching Faunus.
Holding his breath Jaxon ran quickly through the cloud that had knocked out Alicia and jumped in front of the other Faunus, he could hold them off hopefuly until the authorities arrived and the White Fang would back off. As long as he wasn't knocked out by the gas filling the pit.
His yellow spear blade swung up and blocked the first cutlass swing from the man on his right. Jaxon leaned forward under the other high slash, and brought his knife up hooking behind the left knee of the left swordsman. The steel easily pulled through weak aura and muscle making the Faunus yell in pain as the leg gave out.
Jaxon ripped the knife up and laid open the sword arm of the one blocking Uzipho, this Faunus snarled brought his sword back for an overhead cut only for Jaxon to floor him with a swift right hook.
The gas was drawing nearer and help seemed no closer.
He took in shallow breaths when his lungs began to burn, his first mistake. Jaxon already felt the effects of the clouds swirling around his feet.
Jaxon slashed down at another figure emerging from the clouds. A cutlass came up and caught his weapon, but Jaxon moved and hooked his knife up and through his target's black clothes and into his stomach.
The bloody grip of the knife slipped from his weak hand as Jaxon took a step backwards. His knees began to buckle, the world began to slow as he blinked and tried to focus.
A pistol came up aiming for his head. One last surge of adrenaline brought the lion Faunus back into fighting form. His left hand closed on the barrel cut up digging the point of his blade across the pistol wielder's chest leaving a bloody cut from stomach to shoulder.
The pistol dropped, a black gloved fist slammed into Jaxon's face. What little aura he had managed to bring up snapped and vanished making Jaxon fall hard on his back. His head bounced off the concrete slab his desperate fight had started on and the lion Faunus blacked out.
A blanket of muffled ringing noises pulled him from the silent depths of unconsciousness, everything he saw was a blur. A blur of Alicia being lifted onto the shoulders of another White Fang, blurs of more freeing the car door and throwing another gas grenade inside.
The blur of a Faunus standing over his chest, and his boot coming down…
It was easy to track the cloud of dust spiraling skyward.
Several minutes ago, once the noise of the bomb had dissipated Kad immediately tried to contact Jaxon and Alicia. Neither of them had answered and so the giant began to grow worried, a deep instinctual twist in his guts.
He knew whatever had happened could only have been the White Fang moving ahead of schedule again, Torchwick or not. And that was a problem. Kad mentally ran through his map of the city and came up with the most direct route to ground zero. Without even a word of warning or explanation Kad sprinted out across to the river and towards a pedestrian bridge.
Co'Balt barely had any time to raise up his arms in outrage even think of an outburst to throw at his rapidly disappearing leader. But after a moment Co'Balt decided that sticking around would not be his best course of action. Since now the rest of his team was either in or about to run to an urban mess that would soon be flooded with problems he could only dream of.
The Faunus rolled his shoulders beneath his blue vest made sure Keila was settled on his belt before crouching in a runner's start. Co'Balt pushed his semblance as hard as he could and raced off to catch up with the speeding giant.
Kad ran as fast as he could vaulting over cars and cutting through side alleys, and in the span of only a few minutes he was at the site of the blast.
Firetrucks, police cars, and all the civil servants who drove them were lined up on the east side of the crater. The clouds of gas were still thick but remained down below street level. None of the uniformed police officers and firefighters wanted to go down and start their search until visibility improved and some real soldiers and Hunters showed up.
Kad skidded to a stop close to the north edge he crouched down on one knee and tried to listen to voices of news casters and others on the far sides of the buildings surrounding him.
"It is unknown what caused this destruction,"
"There have been no confirmed casualties in the surrounding buildings which,"
"There remains a heavy cloud of sleeping gas,"
"Rumors of fighting have begun to circulate,"
"Atlesian air forces and support are on their way."
Co'Balt stumbled next to Kad, gasping for breath with his hands on his knees all his strength drained into his semblance trying to keep pace with his giant leader.
Co'Balt stuttered once he finally caught his breath. "Could you slow down next time?"
Kad placed a hand on the Faunus' shoulder for a moment.
"Hopefully there won't be a next time," The giant told his teammate as he pulled his scroll out from one of his pockets brought up and called Alicia's and Jaxon's numbers simultaneously. It was faint but he heard the little mechanical vibration coming from the smoke.
"What should we do?" Co'Balt asked.
Kad couldn't wait until the smoke cleared, he stood took a deep breath and began to climb down into the mist.
He could only see a few feet in front of him, his boots pressed junk and pavement debris down into foot holds. Soon enough Kad reached the bottom and started towards the scroll he could still hear. The little device was lying next to a wrecked limousine diligently and almost silently its electronic vibration for attention oblivious to the carnage it was surrounded by.
Kad took a closer look around the car, his lungs beginning to itch. He leaned through the upturned door not seeing any of the former occupants. Smells from the front told him the fate of those who spent their last moments behind the wheel. Kad scanned the inside again, this time something did catch his eye,
The fine multi-action Dust rapier he recognized as Weiss Schnee's, left behind by the Heiress. With that in his mind Kad suddenly noticed their snowflake emblem on a multitude of things strewn around.
Kad reached in and retrieved the weapon shoving the point through a loop on his chain belt next to the fighting knife on his right hip. He turned around, the sleeping gas was beginning to clear up. A brief glint of sunlight flashed of another pair of weapons he knew all too well.
The Dust knife Detergeo, and the rifle spear sword Uzipho down by a slab of asphalt next to the last silent scroll with their owners nowhere to be found. Kad began running through scenarios in his head.
Weiss was targeted with the bomb, either to kill or most likely capture given the gas and her absence. Jaxon and Alicia had run to help. White Fang had knocked them all out, disarmed them and disappeared.
The sounds of an Atlas ship over his head were Kad's cue to leave. He collected his teammate's weapons and scrolls and rushed back to his exit route. Spotting the outline of Co'Balt pacing overhead on the lip of the pit.
"Mother fucker you almost gave me a heart attack." Co'Balt said as Kad pulled himself up onto solid ground, "Were you holding your breath that entire time?"
Kad spat to the side trying to clear the itch from his throat. Ignoring his friend for the moment, running over thoughts about the recent events.
"I think Jaxon and Alicia were captured," Kad speculated aloud to Co'Balt.
"By who?" the Faunus asked.
"White Fang, after Weiss I bet." Kad said tapping the hilt of Myrtenaster.
Co'Balt took a step to the side and looked down to the crater. "Why? Those two aren't anyone important."
The giant shrugged, "Hostages, leverage, meat shields, you name it."
"Well we got to go after them!"
Kad held up his hands to stop Co'Balt, "Wow there cowboy."
The Faunus scowled and his face went red for a moment.
"Sorry," Kad apologized after seeing his unintentional insult.
"You're going to ignore this?" Co'Balt said, "What happened to…"
Kad stopped him, "I didn't say that… Look nobody saw any White Fang moving, meaning they probably were working underground. The bomb was there too, if we look for tunnels down there,"
He indicated the pit with his left hand and an outstretched finger, "The cops,"
Then raised the same hand to point skyward, "Or the Atlas jackboots will stop us. There's a bunch of entrances to the city infrastructure south of the river. The authorities will be pissing themselves in fear, once they realize what is going on. I don't think they'll start any search for a sometime. We'll find another tunnel and have a look, go get the three of them before something happens."
Co'Balt scratched his chin for a moment processing his leader's logic but finally nodded in agreement. Kad turned away and started towards the river his teammate close behind.
Kad genuinely felt concern for his two missing friends.
He hoped they would never get caught up in the secrets he was a part of.
But that hoped had just gone up in smoke and now he needed to act.
This wasn't part of the plan.
Why take the Schnees when they would soon have the entire Kingdom by the ear and throat.
The White Fang jumped the gun again, everything they were responsible for that Kad knew of was supposed to happen at the end of the tournament.
These actions told him they were operating on their own terms,
Unacceptable.
He would go, and remind them of their place in things,
By not talking to Cinder this would certainly be a problem.
But if his master couldn't see her helpers were getting out of control then she was putting everything in jeopardy by not putting her foot down.
He would fix this…
Cinder would understand, in this delicate matter…
Nothing would be changed….