Soundtrack: It's Our Fight by Steve Jablonsky from Transformers: Dark of the Moon Soundtrack
Please keep in mind that parts of this chapter are happening simultaneously with the next chapter.
I am proud to announce I have become an uncle for the second time, to beautiful baby Winter. That's right, just like a certain Schnee Specialist.
Chapter 75: Salem Strikes Part V, Crisis Escalation
Sharp Strike and Heliosia ran and jumped across the rooftops of Vacuo City, chasing after Thorn persistently but carefully as they knew the high probability that she was leading them into a trap. Salem's teleporting assassin wasn't making it easy for them either, keeping to a good distance ahead of them while making use of her Semblance at times to disappear and reappear almost constantly on the other rooftops around them.
Their adversary would take advantage of any opportunities wherever she saw them, ducking under roof vents and leaping over open spaces between buildings with her notable parkour skills. Occasionally she would send a few careful pistol shots flying in the direction of either of her pursuers, but those rounds were easily deflected by Sharp Strike's twin swords or Heliosia's Flameguard.
The Summer Maiden and the Remnant Knight representative had to be careful in their pursuit, often evading whatever attack Thorn threw their way and protecting themselves as much as they could; be it seemingly ineffectual gunshots, sudden kicks and punches, random objects thrown at them, or whatever else Thorn used to fight them.
"She's creative, I'll give her that." Heliosia murmured as she came up after a roll to avoid a spray of pistol shots meant for her legs.
Sharp Strike merely grunted out an agreement as he deflected a couple of shots meant for the Maiden's shoulders. As he shielded the Summer Maiden by snapping a few shots from his revolver pistol which Thorn dodged by ducking behind a pair of smoking chimneys.
Heliosia mentioned, "We can't keep chasing her like this. Sooner or later she'll wear us out and take advantage of our exhaustion to gain an edge over us."
She then ran out from behind him and sent a blast of fire at Thorn who quickly teleported out of its way before the burst of fire slammed harmlessly into a huge wall of sandstone. As the flames smoldered on the blocks of sandstones that made up the unyielding wall, Thorn reappeared on the rooftop of a nearby building, overlooking the two.
"Tired yet?!" She asked impudently, although both Sharp Strike and Heliosia could see that she was breathing a little heavily.
"Of you? Very." The Summer Maiden answered as she sent out another blast of flames at Thorn who teleported out of the way just as quickly, appearing to lean casually beside a billboard a few meters to the right.
"Oh-ho! So the supposedly pure Maiden of Summer has some bite in her. Well, I'm getting tired of stringing you two along, so how about we settle this with a straight-up fight?" Thorn proposed smugly.
"You'd have no hope of winning such a contest." Sharp Strike commented bluntly with his sword Hong Long and revolver pistol readied in case she tried anything.
"Wouldn't you be surprised?" Their adversary remarked cockily before jumping off the building and teleporting in mid-air, reappearing again a few rooftops away from them, pointing to a large structure close by. "Come to that colosseum a couple of streets away and fight me, if you think you can."
Before either Sharp Strike nor Heliosia could do anything, Thorn turned and ran towards the colosseum, which was undergoing repairs and renovations, so was luckily empty. The Knight Errant was about to move off to chase her once again when Heliosia stopped him with a hand to the crook of his elbow.
"Sharp Strike, wait." She looked at the azure lenses of his armored helmet, "I have an idea on how to defeat her."
"And what does it entail?" He inquired, curious but careful at the same time.
"I'll fight her alone." Heliosia answered frankly.
"Surely you sense a trap as much as I do?" Sharp Strike pointed out, gesturing with his sword.
"Of course." The Summer Maiden gave a nod, "Thorn thinks she can best me, and that makes her overconfident. Perhaps I can use that to our advantage."
"Her trap will be sprung if you fight her alone, Heliosia." The Knight Errant said tersely, "My orders are to ensure that you would not be harmed, and I will follow them to my last breath."
"And you will, if you do exactly what I say." Heliosia's maroon eyes focused on him even as her gloved hand tightened on his armored elbow, "Just do your part, and I'm sure the Remnant Knights would have someone to interrogate later on." The brown-haired maiden tightened her fingerless gloves, "But not before I teach her a lesson or two. Do you trust me?"
There was a pause as Sharp Strike lowered his weapons a little before he said, "I trust you, Heliosia."
"Perfect, that's all I ask of you." The Summer Maiden beamed at him, "Now, here's the plan…"
Throughout his career in the Vacuo Rangers, Strider never liked urban warfare. It was tedious and brutal work; fighting in close quarters where the enemy can come from any direction and if you don't react fast enough it would often lead to serious injury or death. He had lost more than his fair share of colleagues and close friends within the organization that way, when he performed his duty dealing with gang leaders clashing over turfs around the city, or in crossfires during raids on the Vacuoan underworld's many hideouts.
But when uncontrolled chaos exploded across the city, Strider eventually found himself in the same predicament once more and lamented the fact he wasn't in one of the rangers' armored personnel carriers or taking to the air in an airship or gunship. Less than ten minutes ago his command vehicle had been severely damaged by a masked Red Fang Faunus wielding a missile launcher, which forced Strider to run and gun on foot through stuttering hails of enemy gunfire alongside other squads of Vacuo Rangers.
After receiving the call for reinforcements from the troops engaged in battle with the dwindling Red Fang agents at the city's main airship terminal, Strider and his accompanying squads responded as quickly as they could. Making their way through the streets occupied by rampaging Grimm hordes and gunfights between the Kingdom's military forces and the various gangs, the Vacuo Rangers had managed to reach the terminal only to find another slightly bigger battle already taking place throughout it.
The terminal was a huge sandstone building with a domed roof and was known to the populace of Vacuo as Ramses Station where all incoming and outgoing airship traffic goes through. Not only did it have the necessary landing pads to accommodate airships of every known shape and size; it was also where all the major railroads in the capital converge at, which made it an extremely important location to be protected and kept in control of should one need to move troops and supplies throughout the capital.
Bullets pinged and zinged past him through the ruined multi-colored beautifully-patterned glass doors of Ramses Station, the remaining door hanging by broken hinges while the others were lying on the ground reduced to expensive wood and glass shards. His personal squad has stacked up by the left-sided wall, their handheld weapons covering each other as more bullet rounds and an occasional grenade came flying through the destroyed entrance, detonating into clouds of hot razor-sharp shrapnel. Strider ducked back reflexively as a lucky bullet ricocheted off the opposite wall and nearly gave him a third nostril.
Meanwhile behind him down the steps, the machine-gun turrets mounted atop the armored vehicles of the Rangers outside Ramses Station raked repeatedly across the rooftop and many balconies on the exterior of the airship interchange station, killing any Red Fang soldier and gang punk who didn't manage to duck down into cover in time and also preventing them from shooting the breaching Rangers.
"Squads Five, Eight and Ten!" Strider shouted into his helmet's communication pickup, "Smoke grenades, followed by frag! Throw them now!" Pulling a smoke grenade from his belt, he pulled the pin and tossed it through the broken front doors, with his comrades doing the same in the next few seconds. A series of loud bangs were heard and the booming gunfire lessened significantly, and thick grey smoke billowed outwards along with pained screams coming from the grenades' victims.
The Commander of the Vacuo Rangers mentally counted three seconds and then sprinted through the shattered doors, firing his assault rifle at any hostile he could see while other rangers covered him by throwing additional smoke and frag grenades and providing cover fire for their commander. Through the protective visor of his helmet he could see figures dressed in red and black staggering as they were hit by grenade shrapnel, and immediately took advantage of their disorientation by putting down a pair of masked Faunus with quick shots to their shoulders before immediately switching targets.
He dashed for the nearby marble staircase and ascended the steps quickly, bullets punching holes and blowing out clouds of mortar dust from the wall behind him as he ran. A Black Viper thug lunged out of a nearby doorway and tried to drive a serrated knife into Strider's neck but he body-slammed the thug and drove his combat knife into his lightly-armored stomach instead. Giving it a savage twist and feeling blood flow through his fingers, Strider kicked the screaming thug away and down the staircase.
Strider dove behind a row of ticket counters with a couple of other rangers of his squad, and they began to return furious gunfire at the Red Fang soldiers and gang members who had managed to occupy the same level and the levels above them. Bullets and shells soon began to pound against their cover despite their defiance, and when an enemy grenade landed beside him Strider swiftly picked it up and threw the grenade back the way it came from.
Over the massive gunfight that spilled out over the mezzanine levels and the expansive waiting plaza below, Strider could hear thundering booms echoing from the other entrances of Ramses Station as other squads of Vacuo Rangers breached the building, adding their numbers and additional firepower to push the enemy back. Seeing the Red Fang and various thugs divert their gunfire on the newcomers he ducked low, running behind the ticketing counters as he loosed assault rifle fire over the tops while changing his position and bellowing, "I want rangers in position now! Get them onto the upper levels and start laying down suppression fire for the other squads!"
"Understood, Commander!" The sergeants of the two squads running beside and behind him split up with their accompanying squads, while Strider took cover again behind the thick walls of a ransacked souvenir shop while the rangers of his squad returned fire. He took a quick calming breath and then risked a look from the side of the wall he was hiding behind and managed to see the battle in its entirety.
The plaza below, which had been transformed into a warzone within minutes, initially looked rather beautiful with majestic ancient Vacuoan warrior statues and a mosaic floor covered with inlaid colored tiles that formed image of a mighty Faunus warrior king that ruled the western Kingdom in times past. Now most of those marble statues were heavily damaged and behind the cover of improvised barricades several Red Fang and assorted gang members exchanged breakneck gunfire with Vacuo Rangers and civil enforcers with bullets, grenades and shells flying back and forth across the upper levels and the distance of the large plaza. The dead and dying of both sides lay scattered throughout the plaza where they fell, unable to do anything else as the roaring gunfight raged continuously above them.
He frowned at the wanton destruction wreaked to the interior of Ramses Station before ducking back behind the wall again as enemy bullets flew his way, smashing the remaining glass windows and pounding the façade of the souvenir shop. Other Vacuo Rangers continued to return fire with their assault rifles, and corporal Fawzi screamed as he took a round through the neck, falling back onto the detritus-covered ground as he desperately tried to stem the blood flowing from the hole in his throat. Strider cursed as he dragged the wounded corporal into an adjacent room while shouting for the medic to take care of him, before charging back into the fight after slamming a fresh magazine into his rifle.
"Look out! Enemy robots incoming!" He saw a ranger named Mazin shout out the warning before he was hit by a series of red lasers, blasting through one arm in a burst of blood and punching a smoking crater into his chest. Mazin's mouth gaped helplessly for a few moments as he looked down at his wounded chest before falling on his knees and pitching over dead. The other Rangers, at least those who had heard his warning, quickly turned their weapons on the marching Grimm Knights as they emerged from a nearby corridor, their powerful weaponry of machine-guns, grenade launchers and lasers already spitting death.
"Damn! Where did they come from?!" Strider immediately opened fire, blowing one of the Grimm Knights to pieces with armor-piercing rounds but the rest simply marched inexorably onward towards the row of shops which the Rangers were using as protective cover against enemy fire. While the rest of his squad continued to throw out retaliatory fire, he broke into a crouching sprint away from the souvenir counter he had been hiding behind with laser blasts and machine gun bullets chasing him as a pair of Grimm Knights turned their weapons in his direction.
He dove through the broken doorway of another shop, this one seemingly a simple eatery store, and took cover behind a sturdy wall as red lasers sizzled through the air above him. As Strider reloaded once more, he heard whimpering sounds and looked up to see an elderly Kangaroo Faunus woman holding a couple of terrified looking kids close to her as they hid behind the store counter with evident looks of fright on their faces. He quickly gestured for them to remain silent and keep their heads down, before plucking another frag grenade from his belt and tossing it out of the nearest window at the Grimm Knights, followed shortly by returning fire at the same time as the other Vacuo Rangers in the vicinity when the grenades exploded.
Strider managed to take down two more Grimm Knights by constantly running and gunning, but it wasn't long before the Vacuo Ranger commander was forced back into cover, the sheer amount of enemy weapons fire hammering at whatever shelter he had managed to find along with a few other rangers. Explosive shells expelled from the weapons of the Grimm Knights smashed into the white marble walls around them, blasting free fist-sized chunks of stone and showering the rangers with rubble and other bits of debris.
"Commander, we can't advance any further with those robots pinning us down!" Corporal Rahman shouted above the din as he slipped fresh shells into the top-mounted elevator of his shotgun.
"I know, and we need to find a way to flank them or else the Red Fang and gang members will use this chance to strike!" Strider replied as he fired his assault rifle at foolhardy terrorist who was charging at them with a billhook machete, watching him collapse in a screaming heap as his knees were shredded. He opened the communication channel and started giving out orders again, "Squad Five! I need you to draw the enemy's attention so we can get to a better flanking position!"
"Negative, Commander!" The reply was short and strained, the attention of the sergeant in charge of Squad Five clearly focused on something more pressing, "We've met serious resistance from the Red Fang and Black Vipers! Half of my squad is down, and the rest are currently under heavy fire! I need reinforcements now or we would be forced back through the Eastern exit! Do you copy, Commander?"
"I copy." Strider answered as he emptied his assault rifle into another Grimm Knight with twin laser blasters for its arms, blowing it up in a large explosion when its energy cells were hit, "Hang tight Sergeant Rashid, and don't stop fighting. Reinforcements are on the way!"
"Copy that, better make it fast!" Sergeant Rashid's voice was nearly swallowed in static.
Allowing Privates Aziz and Sami and Corporal Rahman to cover him, Strider ducked back into cover as he changed the communication channel in his helmet to another channel reserved for high-ranking Vacuo Rangers. While his comrades continued to pour fire from their weapons at the Grimm Knights and Red Fang, he spoke clearly and hurriedly into the special channel while praying that the operator personnel back at Headquarters would hear his request for reinforcements.
"This is Commander Strider, requesting immediate deployment of 55th Wolf Hunters Desert Guard Unit on these coordinates. Authorization: Sigma sixty-six-Alpha. Wolf Hunters are to assist the Vacuo Rangers in taking given objectives at Ramses Station. Vacuo Rangers are rapidly losing ground at target location against enemy forces. Expedite reinforcements immediately!"
There was a couple of seconds of static after he communicated his message, before the Vacuo Ranger commander heard a reply that made him smile, "Request acknowledged. 55th Wolf Hunters inbound in two minutes by Bullhead. Hold in the name of the Vacuo Council." It was definitely the voice of the Elite Desert Guard officer in charge of the rapid-response unit.
'Easier said than done.' thought Strider as he threw himself back into the fight.
A trio of huge heavy assault tanks in the beige and brown colors of the Vacuoan Desert Guard rumbled down one of the wide thoroughfares of Vacuo City, followed closely by half a dozen other tanks and armored personnel carriers of the rangers, making their way to the Path of Deliverance city square where a couple of Deathworms and a substantial number of Grimm hordes were reported by the Vacuo Ranger squads and civil enforcers that were fighting valiantly for the area.
Captain-General Canis Bailey sat in his seat in the open turret of his command tank, Desert Wrath, manning the turret's twin-barreled machine gun. As the heavy tank stormed down the streets, he fired salvos of bullets at any Grimm he could see within firing range, which was mirrored by other Desert Guards and Vacuo Rangers manning the cupola and turrets of the other armored vehicles. When they rounded an intersection, the Wolf Faunus narrowed his steel-grey eyes at the rough, handmade barricade of oil drums, barbed wire, sheets of rusting steel and salvaged wooden boards. There was even a couple of old transport trucks parked across the road as well, and shots from rifles and shotguns as well as an occasional grenade launcher blasted from behind the obstruction by the cursing gangers manning them, but Canis ignored them as the expelled ordnance impacted harmlessly against the thickened armor of his tank.
The gang members manning the hastily made barricade lacked any heavy weapons, and their defiance (more like pitiful resistance) was next to worthless as the turrets of the Desert Guards' heavy assault tanks turned in their direction. Compared to what he was riding in, the foolish gang members were nothing in the face of the war machines belonging to the Kingdom's elite Desert Guard. "Sergeant Fawzi, remove the obstruction!" He bellowed and the command tank's twin 150 mm cannons roared deafeningly and demolished the barricade with a single twin shot.
A massive explosion consumed the barricade, sending a cloud of hot shrapnel and smoke up into the air and killing any gang thug who was foolish enough not to throw down their guns and run for their lives. With the barricade reduced to flaming wreckage with a scattering of bloody body parts the opposition fell silent and the Desert Guards arrested the surrendering survivors as the tanks rolled past, crushing rubble and grounding vehicle wreckage underneath their tanks' churning treads. The convoy followed, passing through the cleared intersection unopposed and spreading out into the rubble-strewn Path of Deliverance square with their turrets elevating to cover all possible angles.
The city square they arrived at was a wide expanse of concrete and stone, hemmed in by sandstone buildings on all sides which sweltered endlessly under the merciless rays of the sun. At its northern end was a mighty cathedral with multiple statues of Vacuoan heroes and heroines who fought in long ago wars covering its façade, which reared above the other buildings with domed spires stabbing into the smoke-covered sky. The entire area looked like a scene out of a war film, with scattered groups of Vacuo Rangers trading intense gunfire with various gang members while terrified civilians ran in every conceivable direction. However, it seemed to Canis that the majority of human and Faunus civilians were running for the safety of the cathedral, which had a small number of monks and temple guardians hurrying them inside while the Vacuo Rangers bravely fought against the incoming Grimm hordes.
"Deathworm! Two o'clock!" The Captain-General heard a panicked shout in his helmet's communication channel and then heard the cannons of the other two heavy tanks, Indomitable Valor and Glorious Son, open fire at the Grimm Deathworm which emerged from the concrete ground not far away from the eastern road, roaring loudly with its open teeth-crowded mouth as it smashed aside the crumbling buildings which collapsed like a line of dominos and sending rubble flying everywhere. The Ranger tanks and armored personnel carriers quickly opened fire with their turrets as well, while the carrier ramps disengaged and the squads the armored vehicles carried within disembarked in short order and added their weapons' firepower at the Deathworm, covering large sections of it with explosions as bullets and shells hammered into it.
Canis quickly checked the belt feed of his turret-mounted machine gun and opened fire at the same time as the Desert Wrath's twin cannons fired its explosive payload at the Deathworm. He gritted his teeth as he steadied his aim, salvos of armor-piercing rounds ripping through Beowolves, Boarbatusks, Ursas, Creeps, Hellhounds and even a few medium-sized Deathstalkers. He swung his machine gun around to target an Ursa Major which lunged towards his heavy tank, and cursed when he wasn't fast enough while quickly pulling his sidearm from his shoulder holster as the Grimm beast neared the heavy assault tank.
There was a sound of a heavy weapon firing, before a Vacuo Ranger armored personnel carrier rammed into the Ursa Major and sent it flying sideways into a nearby shop and shattering its windows. Before the Grimm could get back on its feet it was pounded with shells from the heavy cannon turret mounted on top of the ranger armored vehicle, punching several holes in it until it roared a final time and faded away into vanishing black dust. Canis gave a nod of gratitude to the ranger manning the heavy cannon turret, who he recognized as Sergeant Amjad. The Vacuo Ranger sergeant saluted him respectfully with one hand while his fellow ranger reversed the armored personnel carrier so that he can bring his turret's cannon to bear on the Grimm creatures that were swarming around the recently-emerged Deathworm and others that were emerging from the gaping hole in the ground.
"Hard reverse! Now!" Canis suddenly shouted at his heavy tank's driver, a youthful yet rough-looking corporal named Murad, who looked up at him from the interior of Desert Wrath. His death glare brooked no questions, and the Desert Guard trooper quickly obeyed the order and the heavy tank clanked backwards, its cannons still firing high-explosive shells at the Deathworm and blowing groups of Grimm into oblivion alongside the other Desert Guard tanks and Vacuo Ranger armored vehicles.
Suddenly from the demolished sandstone buildings a hundred meters to their left another Deathworm emerged, roaring like the first one and crushing a Ranger transport truck underneath its enormous bulk while raining debris and rubble from its head and leathery sides. It swung its head from side to side slowly and ponderously, before snatching up a ranger tank that didn't manage to reverse to a safe distance in time and flung it at the armored convoy. The unfortunate tank went flying through the air, shedding wreckage before smashing into an ornate bank building to Canis' left, showering him with bits of marble and concrete.
"Indomitable Valor and Glorious Son, Deathworm at three o'clock! Open fire now!" The scarred Wolf Faunus yelled into his helmet communicator pickup, "All tanks and armored vehicles, spread out and concentrate fire on the other Deathworm at ten o'clock!"
As the armored convoy scrambled to follow his orders, Canis punched a button that dropped his command chair down into Desert Wrath's turret while the hatch clang down above him and sealed itself with a hiss of equalizing pressure. Despite everything being awash in green inside the command tank, thanks to his Faunus nature the Captain-General of the Desert Guard could still see everything clearly enough. There was a whooshing sound above him as the heavy tank's 4.75 inch missile pods fired their payloads, slamming into his chosen target and causing the Grimm Deathworm to roar in pain.
He checked the radar scans on his screens, seeing the surroundings around his command tank in three dimensions as red and blue dots denoting Grimm and allies changed with every fresh scan. A warning chime echoed through the interior of the heavy tank and Canis instantly knew what the scanner was warning him about: The Deathworm was coming for them, since they had hurt it the most.
"Full Reverse!" He shouted at Murad again who nodded, and then told the gun layer, "Get those cannons elevated at twenty degrees and aimed at the mouth of the Deathworm in front of us! I want them feeding that worm high explosive shells until it dies!"
"Yes, sir!" He cried out as the two loaders heaved the heavy shells into the breech and slammed it shut behind them, "High Explosive shells loaded and ready, sir!" One of the loaders called out.
Canis squinted through the turret's viewing block in front of him, watching the other Vacuo Ranger armored vehicles hurling shells and bullets at the incoming Deathworm and other Grimm beasts. Once he made sure that the Deathworm had opened its massive maw once more, he barked the order.
"Fire!"
The sound of his command tank's twin 150 mm cannons roaring was music to Canis' ears.
Vacuo City was in complete chaos. Grey and black smoke billowed into the sky from many different districts, while Grimm rampaged everywhere be it on the wide city streets, through the tunnels underground or flocking in the air. Tom Allcroft simply couldn't believe what was happening, but the truth was right before his eyes as he watched hordes of various Grimm species pour through the city.
As he operated the train down the elevated line that went throughout the city on a large bridge, trying to get to the switched track that would take him to the desert outskirts, he witnessed Grimm of all kinds and sizes attacking the terrified human and Faunus civilian population of the capital, overrunning security checkpoints while being shot at by law enforcement forces, Vacuo Ranger and Desert Guards. Some of the Grimm creatures were rendered to black dust but most of them kept attacking, the instinct to rend and tear through any living thing spurring them onwards.
"Busted buffers!" Tom muttered to himself, using an old substitute curse word his mother had forced his father to use while in front of him and his siblings a long time ago, "I hope I'm doing the right thing…because if the Hau Bakuhatsu's explosion won't destroy the city those monsters definitely will!"
Just then, he saw the switch in the track up ahead, one track went straight ahead further into the city while the other curved around and descended in a smooth downward slope that would take him through the outer districts and eventually away from the City.
"Yes! Made it!" He cheered as he sped up the train a little, hoping to get out of his current predicament as soon as possible. Tom then quickly glanced at the security camera feed on one of the monitors built over his dashboard, and from what he could see the flames were around five or six minutes away from reaching the reinforced metal containers containing the Hau Bakuhatsu.
He wiped his brow nervously, knowing that once the flames reached the crates it would only take a few minutes more for the heat to affect them enough to ignite the highly-combustible liquid within. Tom had heard about how devastating small amounts of Hau Bakuhatsu could be, and two dozen containers holding several gallons each would probably wipe out a huge a fourth of Vacuo City.
As the train approached the switch at a steady but careful speed, Tom noticed something that made him pale: the switch for the railroad was set to go on into the city, not to the track leading out into the desert.
He couldn't understand it; Mike said he would contact all of the signal operators and have them set the points to guide him out of Vacuo City, right? How could something like this happen? Tom took a quick look out of the nearest window and got his answer: there were the unmistakable outlines of a pair of Beowolves feasting on their victim within the nearest signal box with the windows smashed open.
"Oh no, no, no!" Tom cried alarmed as he tried to stop the train and set the switch himself but it was too late. The entire train, engine and flaming boxcar, went past the switch and back into the city just when he was so close to bringing the explosives away from the capital. The young train driver let out a cry of anger as he kicked the wall of his engine in frustration, knowing that he was rapidly running out of time. He knew he couldn't do anything anyway, even if he tried to physically move the switch the Beowolves would spot him in no time, given the stress he was currently under.
"What am I gonna do?!" He cried out loud to himself, before hearing the deafening roar of a massive Grimm creature. Tom looked out from the front window of the engine and saw the Elder Deathworm smashing its way through the districts of Vacuo city, toppling sandstone buildings and crushing anything that couldn't get out of its way in time, and it looked like the massive Grimm creature was seemingly moving in his direction as well.
"Oh crud..." Tom swore, knowing that he had just been caught between a rock and a hard place.
Up ahead Ren, Nora and Team CFVY were valiantly fighting off both the Grimm and Ante's group. Yatsuhashi let out a grunt of exertion as he swung Kyodiana Buredo in an outward sweep, decapitating six Beowolves with that single move while Coco and Nora blasted away with their respective weapons at the Grimm hordes charging towards them and at the massive Deathworm that threatened the city.
Ren, Velvet and Fox did their best to drive off Ante and his remaining Enforcers, who were currently taking up the retreat option. Seeing one of Lao's explosives flying towards them, Ren leapt up and kicked it right at a stray Grimm Creep, killing it through an explosion while also fending off the Enforcer's sword strikes. Deflecting another few more blows from Lao, the green ninja saw his opening and jumped up into the air, kicking the sword-wielding Enforcer into Tom-Tom and toppling them both over in a tangled heap. Velvet used her weapon against Little Steve, creating a copy of Crescent Rose and swinging it about to block some of his minigun shots before helping Ren by using the light-copy of Ruby's weapon to slam both Lao and Tom-Tom into the larger man.
"Ugh!" Ante grunted as he parried Fox's strike at him with the arm-blades, "Even if you beat us, you won't be able to stop all these Grimm!"
"Watch us." Fox replied in a deadpan voice as he kicked the crime lord in the shin before twirling about to spin-kick him in the head, sending Ante crashing onto his back a couple of meters away with his aura broken.
A groaning Ante quickly recovered and flipped the dark-skinned teenager the middle finger, which Fox sliced off with a well-placed slash with his left arm-blade and making him scream shrilly in pain. "Agh! You motherfucker!" Ante cried out painfully as he clutched his bleeding hand, which was glowing faintly with aura, close to his chest.
"Relax, it's supposed to grow back right?" Fox mentioned casually as he saw a new middle finger starting to form due to Ante's Semblance, "Now do me a favor and stay down. I have more important things to do." He then smashed his gauntleted fist into Ante's face, knocking the groaning man to the ground but was forced to jump back when Little Steve sprayed some minigun bullets in his direction.
Before the rest of Team CFVY, Ren and Nora could capitalize on their attack Lao recovered and brought up his grenade launcher while Tom-Tom pulled a couple of cylindrical objects from his belt. Both Enforcers launched their explosive and flash-bang grenades towards the assembled Team Beacon members which forced the latter group to quickly hide behind whatever cover in the street they could.
Seeing the thrown grenades arcing through the air towards them, Fox quickly pulled Coco into cover behind a nearby wall while Yatsuhashi shielded Velvet with his armored body. Ren, on the other hand, managed to grab Nora by the back of her hoodie and get them into the shadow of an abandoned truck, avoiding the worst of their adversaries' weapons fire. After the wave of shrapnel and ringing noise swept over them, Coco, Velvet and Ren returned fire once more only to be met with chattering bursts of gunfire from Little Steve's minigun, Tom-Tom's shotgun and Lao's pistol.
As Ren leaned back out to return fire with his Stormflowers, he saw Ante being helped up by Lao who had slung his superior's arm around his shoulder and making for a darkened alleyway further down the street. He nodded to Velvet and Coco who readied their weapons when a long burst of minigun rounds from Little Steve's weapons forced them to duck back behind cover as bullets peppered around them while Ante and his remaining Enforcers made their escape.
"This ain't over! You haven't seen the last of us!" Ante shouted angrily as he was being hauled away by his associates to safety.
"Should we follow them?" Velvet looked to Ren and Fox, the latter shrugging his shoulders a little.
"We can catch those scumbags later! Right now, we need to find some way to kill that giant Grimm before it destroys more of the city!" Coco called for their attention as she, Nora and Yatsuhashi kept fighting off the Grimm that were spilling out onto the streets.
"You're right, let's go." Ren agreed and told the others as well, while the crime lord and his Enforcer agents who disappeared through the gaping vehicle tunnel entrance at the far end of the alleyway. They heard an echoing boom a second later which caused the top of the tunnel to cave in and cover the entryway with debris, presumably done by Salem's agents to prevent any further pursuit.
The three teenagers ran over to help their comrades, Ren blasting away at some Creeps with his automatic handguns while Velvet brought down her copy of Crescent Rose hard onto an Ursa, while Fox slashed and cut his way through a group of roaring Beowolves and Boarbatusks.
"Ante and his goons out of the fight?" Coco asked as she unloaded her gatling gun into a number of charging Beowolves, promptly shredding them to bits and pieces.
"For now. That Ante guy is really an asshole." Fox commented wryly.
"I know, right?!" Nora agreed.
"We did some damage, but not enough to take them out for good. And it seems that they managed to make their escape again." Ren remarked as he and Nora helped Team CFVY drive the Grimm creatures back.
"There's always another day. Right now, the most important thing is taking out as many of these beasts as possible so they don't hurt anyone else!" Coco declared as she slammed her gatling gun right into an Ursa's head and pulled the trigger, blowing it to dust.
The street beneath their feet trembled violently again as the Elder Deathworm rose into the air once more, collapsing another building and with a mouthful of crushed debris, vehicles and hapless victims spilling from its open maw. On a nearby street Desert Guards and Vacuo Rangers hurriedly ran for cover amidst a deadly hail of detritus while others opened fire from reversing armored patrol vehicles, bullets and shells bouncing and sparking against the toughened skin of the giant Grimm.
Screams rent the air as the unfortunate civilians and soldiers were devoured whole by the Elder Deathworm, vanishing down the gullet of the humongous Grimm beast. Velvet visibly shuddered in horror at the sight, momentarily dropping her guard and forcing Yatsuhashi to cleave a leaping Boarbatusk in half before it could ram her.
"Keep your head in the game, Velvet! I know it's horrible, but we can't back down in this moment." The armored samurai warrior told the rabbit Faunus girl.
Quickly collecting herself, Velvet nodded before trading out her light copy of Crescent Rose for one of Gambol Shroud, swinging out its kusarigama mode and using its sharp blade to cut down as many Grimm as she could while the chain tripped up the others, which were then blasted away by the combined weapons fire from Coco, Ren and Nora.
"Charge!" Coco shouted while moving down the debris-choked street, spraying gatling gun rounds into any Grimm in her path and ripping them to various bits and pieces. The other members of Team CFVY as well as Ren and Nora followed her example, mowing and cutting down hordes of Grimm creatures as they made their way towards one of the major intersections.
"What about that Deathworm?" Velvet called to Coco as she swept her light copy of Gambol Shroud at a Beowolf, removing its arms before bringing it down with a couple of quick slashes to its head.
"I'm thinking!" Coco replied, her minigun's roaring fusillade shredded speedily through a group of Beowolves, Boarbatusks, Ursas and Hellhounds, "But I'm open to suggestions!"
Back with Ante and his Enforcer, the crime lord moaned as his middle finger slowly grew back with the aid of his regenerative Semblance. Throughout their escape in the vehicle tunnels, the subordinates of Ante were treated to a wonderful variety of swear words and curses that would easily make a swear jar full several times over.
"We just got our asses handed to us by teenagers, fucking teenagers!" Ante bemoaned as he tried to keep up with Lao's running strides.
"I hate to tell you this, boss…but they're getting better." Little Steve mentioned mildly, moving alongside them.
"Whatever, man! Let the Grimm handle them while we get gone while the going is good!" Tom-Tom declared.
"Agreed. It is best to retreat for now, so we may fight another day. Boss?" Lao asked, turning to face his superior.
Ante was about to reply when a familiar ringtone erupted from his trouser pocket. Pulling his scroll out, he saw Merrick's name on the scroll's screen and answered it, "Where are you?"
"Me and Executioner just got away from Shade Academy." Merrick's voice came over the scroll with the sound of a bike roaring in the background, "Things have really gone to hell, boss! I took out as many Vacuo Rangers and Desert Guards as I could…and I think I even managed to seriously wound one of those fancy armored knights, but I'm more than half outta ammo and it seems the battle has spread throughout the whole city!"
There was a pause as the screeching of tires was heard, probably Merrick making a sharp turn on his bike before his voice came back once more, "Oh…and Executioner wants it known he killed a lot of those Rangers and other blighters too. Even managed to lock blades with another Remnant Knight as well…for a short while anyway."
"Good work, at least you got your part done right! Make your way to the derelict apartment building at Mosaka Street, we'll rendezvous there." Ante answered before ending the call and looking at his Enforcers, "Now let's make ourselves scarce."
"What about Trooper, Fireball and Emerald?" Little Steve questioned, "The last we saw them was that they were being pursued by Arc, Nikos, and Rose. Shouldn't we get out of these tunnels and find a way to help them?"
"You kidding?" Ante snapped back, waving his recently-healed hand dismissively, "Trooper and Fireball will be fine with Emerald's help, since she knows they can make their escape easily enough. Besides, which one of you would want to get back into the raging battle between the Kingdom's Huntsmen and Huntresses, military forces, assorted gangs and Grimm hordes?"
Lao and Little Steve looked at each other a little indecisively, but otherwise said nothing. Ante glared a little longer at them all and then continued, "We make our way to the designated safehouse first, and then we find out where they are. If they're close by and are still being chased by those brats, we can swing by and run some interference before making our escape together. Now enough talk. Let's get out of here!" Ante snapped as he shrugged off Lao's shoulder and led the group away out of the nearest vehicle tunnel exit and into the urban jungle of Vacuo's capital, while the Elder Deathworm continued its disastrous rampage by slamming down repeatedly onto the streets and boring its way through the pavements and earth before surfacing again by bursting through a number of apartment buildings, coming out of the roof having devoured some of the unfortunate people hiding within and causing the whole thing to collapse around it, roaring frighteningly.
"We gotta kill that thing before it hurts anyone else!" Coco said as she reloaded her gatling gun weapon, attaching fresh chains of bullets from her belt.
"Given the sheer size of it, I'm not sure how we can," Ren lamented, "Even with our skill and firepower, I don't think we have enough to end it."
"We have to try." Velvet voiced with determination, "Because if that huge Deathworm reaches any of the major underground shelters, Shade Academy or the Council palace even more lives would be in danger! We have to keep trying!"
"And we will." Yatsuhashi promised her, just as the Elder Deathworm's tail smashed through a railroad bridge that went through the main throughways of the city, sending bits of broken metal, ballast, and showering rains of sparks were sent flying from broken thick electrical cables. The rails and wooden sleepers hung lazily over the road below with no bridge to hold them up while sparks continued to spew out from the severed electric wires that had been built into the bridge.
Coco's fingers clenched tighter on the handle and trigger of her gatling gun before asking, "Nora, how many grenades do you have left?"
"A lot, but I don't know if they're enough to kill that monster. Maybe…I don't know, unless I unloaded all of them into its mouth or something like that?" Nora remarked as they ran up the debris-strewn street, taking down some Grimm along the way. Sprinting a few steps ahead of them, Fox cartwheeled ahead and slicing various limbs off a number of Grimm creatures while Ren fired short bursts from StormFlowers to take others down.
"And even then," Ren spoke up as he shot a Vampire down, having shredded its wings with a barrage of bullets, "I'm not going to let you risk your life like that, Nora."
"Aw! Thanks Ren!" Nora said appreciatively while they ran under the broken train bridge, careful to avoid the falling debris.
"Then I guess we have to work with what we have for the time being. Let's just hurt that thing as much as we can!" Coco shouted as they stopped a few dozen meters ahead of the damaged train bridge, right before a major road intersection, while the gigantic Grimm Deathworm continued to slither its way through the capital and disregarding the ineffective weapons fire from scattered Vacuo Ranger squads pattering off its exterior bone shell.
"Here goes nothing…" Nora quipped as she aimed and fired a grenade out of Magnhild, creating an explosion at the lower body of the gargantuan Elder Grimm when the expelled ordnance hit an abandoned transport truck which was carrying a number of oil tanks. The resulting blast scorched a significant part of the Deathworm's outer shell, hurting it.
It roared raucously and turned its long upper body around to look at the attackers, just as Coco let loose a wild barrage of heavy gatling gun fire at its face, tearing out several fist-sized chunks of flesh. Beside the fashionista, Velvet used her Semblance to generate a light copy of Coco's minigun and added her firepower to the withering salvo that hammered mercilessly at the massive Grimm. The Deathworm rumbled again and began to slowly slither around and make its way towards them, shattering half-demolished buildings and smashing aside various abandoned vehicles all the way.
"We got its attention!" Coco shouted to the rest of Team CFVY as well as Ren and Nora, "Get ready!"
"Once it gets close enough, we hit it with everything we have." Ren told Nora, Fox and Yatsuhashi, after they had taken down some Grimm creatures that had tried to attack the two brunettes while their attention had been on the Elder Deathworm.
"Wasn't exactly planning on getting that close to it, but whatever needs to be done." Fox remarked with a small shrug of his shoulders as he got ready.
"And if this doesn't work?" Yatsuhashi gauntleted fingers tightened on his sword Kyodiana Buredo as he looked over to Ren.
"We try to keep its attention on us as long as possible, then lure it out of Vacuo City while avoiding populated areas." Ren suggested, "And maybe the Vacuo Rangers and Desert Guards will find some way to kill it there."
"Here it comes!" Nora cried out as the Elder Deathworm's enormous head surged out at them, stopping several meters in front of the six teens and letting out a deafening roar through its open mouth, showing way too many teeth. There was also the repulsive reek of crushed rocks, debris and various organic detritus which the humongous Deathworm had shoved into its expansive orifice during its rampage throughout Vacuo City, which nearly made them want to vomit in disgust.
Velvet cried out in pain and covered both sets of her ears from the awful noise while Coco ignored the horrible sounds coming from the giant Grimm and kept on firing with help with Ren and Nora, who emptied bullets and grenades into the Deathworm's yawning mouth respectively. Fox and Yatsuhashi, on the other hand, kept the flanks clear by slicing through and cutting down any Grimm creatures in the vicinity that tried to attack them.
It snarled loudly as it drew back a little, Nora's grenades and Coco's armor-piercing Dust bullets actually dealing some damage but not enough. The Elder Deathworm brought its long thick tail forward and slammed it down onto the cracked streets, causing the group of Huntsmen and Huntresses to stumble and lose their balance as the ground shook terribly beneath them. It brought up its tail again and attempted to use it to crush them, only for Yatsuhashi, Nora, and Ren to grab the others so Ren could activate his Semblance and cover everyone, downing their colors and rendering them invisible to the beast.
It stopped and looked around for them, confused as to where the small enemies had gone, only for Nora to reach into an alley and grab a barrel before dropping a grenade into it. Yatsuhashi then grabbed it and hurled it at the Deathworm. Coco then blasted it just as the barrel impacted on the Deathworm's tail, which exploded in a sizable fireball that sent pieces of shrapnel cutting deep into the lower parts of its tail.
The massive Deathworm screamed out in pain once more before it slammed head back into the cracked surface of the streets, burrowing deep underground before coming out of the eastern side of the crossroads with its mouth full of rocks and crushed rubble. The few remaining Vacuo Rangers ran for the safety of more sturdy buildings further down the street, trying to keep themselves out of harm's way as they avoided the falling rubble that spilled onto the streets.
"Take cover!" Fox cried before the Elder Deathworm began spewing out an avalanche of rubble and globbets of acidic drool from its open mouth. Velvet quickly created a copy of Akoúo and shielded herself and Yatsuhashi, who picked her up and dived behind a nearby bus while Coco and Fox took cover in an alleyway at the right side of the road. Chunks of rocks, fragments of vehicles, bones, and lumps of dirt rained everywhere, while larger chunks of boulders and crushed metal crashed into nearby buildings and windows, as well as crushing the smaller Grimm beasts that ran beneath it.
"Oh, for…this is really disgusting!" Coco muttered as the Deathworm's regurgitations impacted onto the street and flew up into the air. She flinched back as a large glob of drool splashed onto the street's surface not far away from her and noticed it was smoking, hinting that it was corrosive. The leader of Team CFVY shuddered a little at the slimy substance, not wanting to know what would happen if that corrosive acid somehow managed to get onto her clothing or gods forbid, her skin.
"Ugh, gross! It's barfing rocks at us!" Nora observed from a nearby shop, with Ren's arm wrapped around her abdomen and keeping her head down even as the huge Grimm continued to vomit out an impromptu avalanche of sedimentary rubble, debris and organic detritus that look suspiciously like raw sewage.
"Not exactly an ideal way to go out." Ren remarked as he watched some Grimm creatures, especially Beowolves and Boarbatusks, get crushed into nothingness by the lethal rain of rocks, or were injured by the acidic drool.
"Watch out for its saliva! It's corrosive!" Yatsuhashi shouted as he shielded Velvet with his larger body, covering her as much as possible even as various debris smacked and landed around them, along with blobs of acid which ate away at their spur-of-the-moment cover and the street around them.
For several roaring seconds the downpour of rocks continued as the Deathworm's mouth turned left and right, vomiting forth a hail of rubble spilling into the intersection avenue. Once it stopped, as though the Elder Grimm seemed to pause as though it was tired, and that gave Velvet and Yatsuhashi the chance they needed to run across the street to where Ren and Nora were sheltering.
"Now!" Coco shouted as she came out of cover and fired on the Elder Deathworm yet again, bullet casings rattling onto the street pavement beneath her. Ren and Nora did the same with their weapons, with the green ninja opening fire with his automatic handguns while the orange-haired girl sending rocks and chunks of sandstone flying at the giant Grimm with her hammer. Fox and Yatsuhashi ran close to the bone-armored segments of its upper body and began cutting away viciously at the vulnerable underside, while Velvet created a copy of Crescent Rose, then sprinted up a metal staircase of an intact building a few blocks away to its fire-escape catwalk and began sniping at the Deathworm's head.
The Elder Grimm let out another piercing shriek before it slammed its entire body down, the six teens managing to get the hell out of its way and hence avoided the fate of various abandoned vehicles on the streets. Ren leapt onto the right side of the beast and stabbed the sharp ends of StormFlower's collapsible blades into a particularly damaged area which had suffered multiple blasts by Coco's minigun, moving the gunbarrels directly at the exposed flesh underneath the armor and let loose, blasting away at its vulnerable flesh while Nora used the explosion of a grenade she fired from Magnhild to propel herself atop the Grimm monster's head where she began whacking away at it repeatedly with her hammer. As the Elder Deathworm writhed and tried to shook its attackers off, Fox and Yatsuhashi resumed cutting away at its sides and spattering thick black ichor onto the streets while being aided by Velvet and Coco who poured load after load of bullets into the flanks of the giant Grimm.
The massive Grimm groaned as it slowly turned itself around due to its huge bulk, bringing its bony armor around to shield itself from Team CFVY and making Nora fall to the ground by giving a violent jerk that made her lose her balance with a surprised yelp. Ren, seeing that his partner was in danger, promptly kicked himself off of the humongous Grimm creature and leaped off just in time to avoid getting crushed between the neighboring buildings and the Elder Deathworm's tail, catching Nora in the process.
"Look out for the tail!" Coco shouted as the shrapnel-encrusted tail whipped around and snapped at them while the massive beast hauled itself upright again, splattering viscous black ichor and bits of bone-white armor everywhere from its many wounds. Yatsuhashi and Ren fended off the whiplashing tail while the others backed up closer towards the broken train bridge for space as the Elder Deathworm slithered around another statue-covered sandstone building and let out another earsplitting roar, its considerable weight making the aforementioned building sink slightly. It was a small blessing that it had been evacuated of civilians quite some time ago by the rangers, or else they would have been in grave danger as of the present.
"This ugly son of a gun is freaking tough!" Nora shouted as she changed Magnhild back to its grenade launcher form and fired at the giant-sized Grimm, the canisters detonating in electrified pink blasts that caused the Elder Grimm to roar out its annoyance and pain again.
"Yeah, tough enough to take whatever we can dish out." Coco muttered as she tried coming up with a proper plan to kill it since what she had been doing so far was making up parts of a plan on the fly, "So, everyone…any other suggestions? I don't see any explosives or anything flammable that we can use to hurt that creature."
"I can get up to higher ground, and perhaps use my light copy of Crescent Rose or Coco's gatling gun to shoot at it." Velvet suggested as she rejoined them, "Maybe that will give you a chance to land some of your grenades in its mouth, Nora."
"I'll try, but be careful!" Nora replied with concern in her voice, which the Rabbit Faunus nodded.
"We'll back you up as much as we can." Coco informed her while Fox, who had finished slicing apart the few remaining Grimm that were answering to the Elder Grimm's control, also gave an appreciative nod in Velvet's direction
"Make it hurt, Velv." He added.
"Be careful." Yatsuhashi advised.
Velvet nodded to her teammates as well as Ren and Nora before using her light copy of Crescent Rose to fire at the ground and blast herself into the air. After blasting a few more shots she landed atop of the broken railroad bridge, switched her copied weapon to sniper mode and began shooting at the Elder Deathworm's head. Even though she seemed to be landing direct hits, the shots served only to annoy the enormous Grimm creature.
Just then, her rabbit ears twitched and she looked to her left to see a locomotive pushing a partially burning boxcar coming down the curving track leading to the broken train bridge and coming to a halt. Velvet frowned at this peculiar sight; firstly, shouldn't the train operator be making a beeline for the quickest exit out of town instead of heading towards the danger? Secondly, the train looked familiar...
Meanwhile, inside of the engine's control room, Tom took his gloved hand off the brake-handle, having to stop when he saw the emergency warning sign over the signal gantry that stood over the rails. Quickly glancing down at the monitors above his dashboard which showed the security feed from the train's front cameras, Tom saw the bridge extending over the streets and walkways below…and that the biggest Grimm creature he had ever seen had obliterated it.
"Oh that's just sweet! The next switch is beyond that bridge! What in the name of the Four Gods am I supposed to do now?!" He asked himself, before looking at the flickering monitor again and visibly did a double take when he noticed a familiar female figure standing on the tracks several meter ahead, shooting at the beast with a light copy of Ruby's weapon.
"I…I don't believe it!" Tom cried, realizing who it was. While he didn't often pray much, he was glad that at least something answered his prayers and went to look for a loudhailer in his train compartment.
Seeing that her shots were having little effect on the Elder Deathworm, Velvet switched to bringing down one Grimm after another that were charging down from the various side streets towards the rest of her team, and Ren and Nora as well. Her hands worked her light copy of Crescent Rose as quickly as she could, shooting a leaping Beowolf that was about to slash at Coco before switching to blasting the head off an Ursa that had been giving Yatsuhashi a difficult time.
An insistent beeping coming from her camera soon notified the Rabbit Faunus that her camera's Dust supply had been exhausted. Velvet speedily reloaded her camera's Dust supply with fresh vials from her waist pockets, while watching from her vantage point that a small number of surviving Vacuo Rangers who had survived the Deathworm's rampage had taken cover behind improvised barricades at the other eastern side of the intersection, firing their assault rifles and shotguns non-stop at the hordes of Grimm coming their way. There was even a female ranger manning a heavy machine gun from an armored jeep parked behind the barricade, swinging her twin-barreled weapon left and right as she mowed down as many Grimm creatures as she could while other soldiers continued to reduce the Grimm numbers on the main streets as much as they can from the safety of their hastily-erected barricades and smashed windows of neighboring shophouses.
"Hope I have enough-" She muttered to herself when she heard someone calling her name.
"Velvet! Velvet Scarlatina!" A familiar male voice shouted, one she had heard before during the mission against the White Fang in Vacuo, and the owner was clearly trying to catch her attention, "Remember me?"
Yatsuhashi's partner turned around to see Tom Allcroft running towards her, and after he skidded to a halt he quickly spoke breathlessly, "Velvet! Boy, am I glad to see you!"
"Tom?!" Velvet inquired in surprise, "What are you doing here?"
Tom took a quick breath before speaking, "Okay, I agreed to take a load of highly combustible explosive used for mine blasting on my train in that armored boxcar…" He pointed in the direction of the burning boxcar behind him as he rapidly explained "…however, when the attacks started the boxcar got hit by a rocket and now a fire has started inside. I can't put out the fire because the electronic circuits are fried so I can't get in or use the built-in sprinklers to put it out!"
Velvet opened her mouth in shock, and was about to say something when Tom abruptly interrupted her, "So right now I'm trying to get it out of the city before the spreading fire reaches the explosives inside the boxcar and blows up a huge chunk of the capital! I'm currently stuck on the main lines since there are Grimm creatures nearly everywhere in both the air and the streets, and the only closest secondary line out of town is beyond this bridge which is behind us…which I'm going to assume it got destroyed by that giant ugly Grimm worm your friends are fighting?"
"You'd be correct, but I assume what you've told me is the short version?" Velvet asked.
"No, that's actually the long version. The short version is this: we might be screwed but I think we can help each other out!" Tom spoke hurriedly, "I can't get the burning boxcar out of the capital in time and you all got that giant monster to deal with, and am I wrong in thinking that's not easy for you guys?"
"Yes! That huge Grimm just won't go down no matter what we do!" The Rabbit Faunus exclaimed, before she realized what Tom was getting at, "Oh! I see what you mean! We can trick the Elder Deathworm into eating that explosive-laden boxcar that's on fire! Fantastic!"
The Rabbit Faunus grabbed Tom's hand and quickly led him over to the edge of the bridge, not far away from the broken end, and called out as loudly as she could, "Everyone! I've found a way to kill that Deathworm!"
Coco, who was ducking behind a nearby building after firing a sustained burst of armor-piercing rounds from her minigun at the giant-sized Grimm, looked up when she heard Velvet's voice. The others members of Team CFVY, plus Ren and Nora, immediately focused their attention at where Velvet's voice was coming from, and looked up to see Velvet and Tom standing at the elevated railroad bridge.
"Wait, is that Tom Allcroft?" Yatsuhashi asked as he took cover with the others from the immense Deathworm's attacks, even as a fresh wave of rubble and assorted detritus was expelled from its mouth once more. The Elder Grimm's head then changed direction as bullets and shells smacked into it, roaring in annoyance at the small convoy of Vacuo Ranger vehicles that were firing at it from a couple of streets away and coincidentally taking its attention away from the group of Huntsmen and Huntresses.
"I don't believe it." Coco muttered in disbelief.
"Wait, who's he?" Nora asked.
"The train driver who gave us a lift during the White Fang mission. Don't have a clue as to what he's doing here." Coco stated as she fed another belt of bullets into her gatling gun, "So what's the sitch?"
Velvet hurriedly jumped down, ran over, and explained the situation to her friends.
Coco considered what Velvet had told them before calling up to Tom, "What kind of explosives are you packing?"
"Hau Bakuhatsu! Two dozen containers of them in the boxcar! And if we don't get rid of them soon, they'll blow and take a good chunk of this city with it!" Tom exclaimed while waving his hands for emphasis.
"Crap." Coco remarked as her brown eyes widened behind her aviator glasses. She thought about what Velvet's plan for roughly fifteen seconds, and from a short distance away the others heard the ear-shattering sounds of destruction as the Elder Deathworm demolished a couple more buildings and crushed one of the Vacuo Rangers' vehicles. No matter what the Vacuoan soldiers were doing, their weapons were only slowing it down, bleeding the Grimm Deathworm but not killing it.
The minigun-wielding fashionista then gave a nod and declared, "Okay, we're in! Get that boxcar of yours to the very edge of the broken bridge tout suite, while we lure that overgrown earthworm over and trick it into stuffing that boxcar down its gizzard. Then we sit back and watch the fireworks."
"Works for me! I love big explosions." Nora beamed happily.
"But what if it doesn't work?" Yatsuhashi asked quietly.
"Have you ever seen an explosion caused by a single barrel of Hau Bakuhatsu?" Tom looked at the biggest member of Team CFVY, "Trust me, that beast is so going to go boom, big time!"
"If that's the case, then let's get on with it." Fox remarked.
"Okay, but hurry! I don't know how much time is left before it blows!" Tom shouted as he began running back to his train with its explosive cargo.
"Right! No time to waste people, so let's move it!" Coco commanded loudly, and then she led her team with Ren and Nora out into the open streets to get the monstrous Deathworm's attention yet again; this time with four of them blasting away at the mammoth Grimm's head while Yatsuhashi and Fox kept the remaining Grimm from rushing the group's flanks with their bladed weapons, awaiting the chance to get cutting at the horrific monster again.
Meanwhile up on the bridge Tom sprinted back to his family's locomotive, only to skid to an abrupt halt when he noticed a rather intimidating Grimm Lancer hovering around the main engine compartment, its four wings buzzing noisily and its insectoid form striking fear into his heart. Sensing his fear, the said Lancer's head jerked around to look at him in the eyes and spun to swoop directly at the brown-haired teenager.
Tom let out a scream of terror as he fell onto his back, instinctively whipping out his pistol and unloaded the whole thing into the hornet-like Grimm's head as it shot down to sting him. The bullets punched deep and blew its large, curved red eyes out. As the dead Grimm faded away, Tom pushed himself up and muttered, "I freakin' hate those things!"
He climbed back into his train engine and started it up again, while also reloading his pistol. After making one last check, Tom was about to pull the lever to get the train moving again when the walkie-talkie in his jumpsuit's pocket squawked with static before a voice broke through, "…I repeat, Train Operator of Engine 11984-44, please respond!"
He shared a look with Velvet before bringing out his walkie-talkie, tuning the frequency to seventy-seven point six and responding with, "This is Tom Allcroft, Operator of Engine 11984-44…who is this?"
"This is Sergeant Diyo of the Vacuo Rangers, and what the hell are you and your train doing on the tracks during a city-wide emergency?" The voice belonging to the sergeant emerged from the walkie-talkie, "And why is there a boxcar on fire?!"
Tom swallowed but forced himself to remain calm as he answered, "I don't have any time to explain everything to you Sergeant, but right now I'm trying to do my part in a, hastily-concocted, plan that will hopefully kill that big ugly Grimm worm that's rampaging through town!"
"What the bloody hell are you talking about?" The Vacuo Ranger sergeant's voice came back at him, "Don't be a fool, get yourself and your train out of the way before that Deathworm makes you its next snack!"
"All right, I had it!" Tom shouted furiously into his walkie-talkie, "Sergeant, a bunch of brave Hunters-in-training are fighting the Grimm Deathworm with all they've got so that we can trick it into eating the burning boxcar that had two dozen large containers of Hau Bakuhatsu that will hopefully kill it! And we are also running out of precious time because the very same boxcar's fire is a literal ticking time bomb that will blow up half of Vacuo City since I can't get it out of the capital!"
There was silence at the other end, and so Allcroft brother took a quick breath before continuing, "So do you want to argue with me some more or do you want to help me save millions of freaking lives?!"
Static answered him for a few seconds and then he heard the Vacuo Ranger sergeant again, "All right, Allcroft…I'm listening. What do you need us to do?"
Tom hurriedly explained the situation and detailed his request, and after getting confirmation from the Vacuo Ranger sergeant he looked to the security monitor feed of the boxcar and saw that the flames had already half-engulfed the metal containers. It was only a matter of time before they got hot enough to explode catastrophically, and that time was running out rapidly.
"Oh gods, please let this work…" He whispered to himself as the train engine powered up and slowly set off once more.
Down on the cracked streets Nora fired multiple grenades at the head of the Deathworm, the cluster of explosions blowing the Grimm monster's head back and wreathing it in pink electrified smoke. The worm-like creature shook off the pain but the injuries it had suffered so far were obvious from its cracked segmented armor plates all over its body, and those wounds were further made worse by Ren blasting at the gaping wounds Nora had just made.
The rest of its segments were also under attack from Team CFVY; with Yatsuhashi slamming his sword deep into the vulnerable exposed fleshy regions, Fox slashing at various damaged sections as quickly as possible, Coco and Velvet both blitzing up its lightly-armored underbelly with their minguns, and finally the Vacuo Rangers who kept its whipping tail and accompanying lower body busy by blasting it repeatedly with streams of bullets and shells from their vehicles to distract the Deathworm as much as they could.
With a booming groan, the Elder Deathworm brought its wounded head down and tried to snatch up Ren and Nora who were emptying everything they had at its face, but the couple just barely managed to avoid the wide, hungry maw. The orange-haired girl even whooped as she fired a trio of grenades into the teeth-filled maw, blowing out chunks of flesh from inside of the Deathworm's drooling orifice.
"I think it's safe to say we have its attention now!" Ren called out as he fired StormFlowers at the thundering Grimm a few more times.
"Come on! We've got to get it in place!" Coco yelled as she backed up towards the broken bridge with her team. She heard the sounds of intensifying gunfire and glanced back to see a couple of squads of Vacuo Rangers firing their handheld and vehicle-mounted weapons at the Elder Deathworm as well, and while the fashionista briefly wondered how the rangers knew what to do she wasn't about to complain about the much-needed assistance.
As she unloaded the latest rounds from her light-copy of Crescent Rose into the incoming Grimm Deathworm, Velvet looked back and saw Tom's train about to reach the very edge of the recently-destroyed bridge with the boxcar stopping mere inches away from the hanging, slack rails, "Tom's nearly there! Hurry, or else that explosion will definitely kill us as well as the Deathworm!"
"I know!" Coco shouted above the sounds of her rattling minigun, "Anyone wants to go tell that Elder Grimm to move a little faster?"
The fighting group of Hunters moved backwards towards the devastated bridge while firing at the Elder Deathworm slithering after them. It slowly swung its vast head over the tops of nearby concrete and sandstone buildings, brought it down about halfway and then plowed through the roofs, sending shattered billboards, broken vents and various equipment, crumbling bricks and various other debris raining down onto the streets below, nearly crushing the six teenagers and accompanying Rangers.
"I think it's safe to say we've made it mad." Ren noted as they evaded the falling debris.
"Good, cause' it's ticked me off plenty!" Nora cried out as she shot another grenade at the colossal Grimm creature's underbelly.
Velvet jumped her way up the metal supports and used her light copy of Crescent Rose to slice the hanging rails off, sending them falling away.
"It would be nice to have Pyrrha here right now, she'd make good use of these metal spars." Yatsuhashi remarked as he picked up a large boulder and tossed it into the air, using his large sword as an improvised bat and smacked it at the roaring Deathworm.
"Well, she's not here right now…so I guess we'll have to make do with what we got!" Fox mentioned as he jumped up to the side of the bridge and began climbing, followed speedily by the others while Velvet and Nora used their weapons to blast themselves up onto the undamaged sections of the train bridge. Coco changed her minigun back into its portable handbag form and started climbing as well, with the last few remaining Vacuo Rangers who had been separated from their squads ascending a short distance behind her. The Rangers' armored jeeps and trucks further down the street reversing out of harm's way as they continued spraying bullets and shells from their turrets at the giant Grimm, doing their part in luring the Deathworm towards the trap.
"Everyone, get on top of the boxcar and keep attacking that giant Grimm worm until it tries to eat us! When it's near enough, we all jump off and let it suffer the worst case of indigestion it's ever had!" Coco ordered the others even as they continued shooting at the creature. She looked to Tom in the engine and demanded sharply, "How much time?!"
"Not sure, maybe a minute more or two I think! It'll honestly take a miracle for this plan to work! Holy crud, that thing is massive…" Tom shouted back as he hung out of the window of his train, his fear of the Elder Deathworm plain on his smoke and grease-stained face as he saw it coming nearer and nearer.
"You've never been around a Grimm that big, I take it?" Coco asked as she climbed up the boxcar, noticing that the metallic surface of the boxcar was rather scorching hot. To make matters worse, black smoke was pouring out of every single noticeable vent and severe burn marks were appearing all over the boxcar itself.
"Nope!" Tom answered.
"Trust me, we've seen worse!" Nora called as she fired off another grenade while Ren reloaded his automatic pistols and resume blasting away at the monster. Beside them, a small number of Vacuo Rangers emptied their assault rifles and shotguns at the Grimm Deathworm, while other soldiers on board the jeeps and trucks also increased their rate of gunfire as much as possible without overheating their turret guns.
"What could be worse? Other than a giant Grimm Lancer?" Tom inquired.
"You'e much happier not knowing." Yatsuhashi stated as he sliced a climbing Beowolf in half and kicked another off the bridge. Velvet had just blasted another bleeding wound onto the skin of the Grimm Deathworm when her rabbit ears began to twitch at a familiar loud buzzing sound.
"Speaking of Lancers, we got incoming!" She announced and everyone looked up to see a rather large swarm of several Lancers flying towards them and about to descend.
"Oh this is just great! More bugs!" Coco groaned before opening fire on them with her minigun, taking out two of them in one salvo. A few groups of Vacuo Rangers who had made it to the rooftops of adjacent buildings swiftly aimed their assault rifles high and let fly with chattering bursts of fire, blowing several of the smaller Grimm Lancers out of the air in screeching shrieks.
"Actually Coco, worms aren't bugs." Ren corrected quietly as he kept firing at the Elder Deathworm, targeting the gaping wounds on its massive body like what his hammer-wielding partner did.
"I don't really care, Ren!" She snapped before rejoining him in causing more hurt to the Elder Grimm after she had brought down any Grimm Lancer that tried to come close or shoot their stingers at them.
"Oh man! This is definitely getting worse!" A terrified Tom cried out in horror as he recoiled from a stinger that slammed right through the metal side of his train engine, leaping away from the window as he fired his pistol at the Lancer which was snapping its mandibles hungrily at him.
As another one shot towards the fighting group, Fox jumped over atop Tom's engine and with a brilliantly-executed somersault plus some well-placed slices of his arm-mounted blades he separated the Lancer's head, thorax, wings and abdomen away from each other. Yatsuhashi, not wanting to be outdone, followed his team member's example and leaped up atop the engine as well and swung his broadsword outwards, cutting another Lancer in half lengthwise and spattering black ichor almost everywhere.
"You two take care of those Lancers, we'll keep the big guy's attention on us!" Coco called out as she moved about, regularly switching targets while noticing how hot the rooftop of the boxcar was getting to stand on despite her boots.
As Fox and Yatsuhashi fended off any Lancer that came close with supporting gunfire from the Vacuo Rangers; Coco, Velvet, Ren and Nora gradually lured the Elder Deathworm over to them, meter by meter. Bullets, shells, grenades sparked and punched almost non-stop into the massive Grimm creature, and it let out another deafening roar as it brought its entire upper body high up into the air, debris falling like deadly hail from its sides.
"Everyone, jump now!" Coco cried as she grabbed Velvet's hand and the two jumped off the burning boxcar and onto the fire escape of a building beside the broken bridge, while Ren and Nora leaped off towards the other side where they landed onto a flat rooftop. The last few Vacuo Rangers who were still firing their weapons at the Grimm Deathworm quickly followed the group's example, jumping to safety as fast as they could while the Ranger vehicles reversed rapidly down the streets to a safe distance, their drivers and gunners knowing what would inevitably happen.
They had gotten off just in time, as the Elder Deathworm's entire head came down upon the boxcar which it devoured whole along with a huge chunk of the severely damaged bridge as well, its entire weight forcing most of the entire bridge to collapse in a horrifying disintegration of crashing steel beams and stone blocks, but surprisingly Tom's locomotive was left standing just scant meters from falling off the broken end of the train bridge, albeit derailed.
"We did it!" Tom cheered from inside of his train engine as the Grimm Deathworm rose its upper body back up again, swallowing the flaming boxcar along with its hazardous contents. Even as the cheer left his open mouth he heard a loud buzzing sound and turned just in time to see a sizable Grimm Lancer that managed to somehow evade the covering gunfire slam itself against the side of the cab door, its sharp mandibles forced through the shattered window right at him.
He recoiled back with wide eyes of fear, watching as the insectoid Grimm buzzed and snapped its clicking mandibles at him while trying to force its way into the engine's compartment, savouring his fear. Tom looked over to his pistol which he had left on the dashboard for a brief moment and quickly reached for it…
"Tom!" Yatsuhashi called out after he and Fox had killed the remaining Lancers, while the Queen of the swarm was brought down with a missile fired by one of the Vacuo Rangers who managed to put his rocket launcher to good use.
"Are you all right, man? Give us a shout!" Fox shouted as they saw the Elder Deathworm began roaring thunderously in pain while Coco and Velvet jumped over to help.
"Oh man, burning up from the inside. What a nasty way to go." Nora remarked as she saw the huge Grimm flail about in obvious pain as its worm body wriggled all over, smashing destructively into nearby buildings, abandoned vehicles and destroying the empty streets.
Just as gunshots were fired from within the train engine, the Elder Deathworm lifted its upper body into the air and let out one final echoing roar, the loudest of all that forced everyone in the vicinity to cover their ears. It was so loud that the roar probably reached throughout the entire capital, and the echoes could possibly be heard in the desert as well.
And then the explosives within the boxcar went off.
With a massive, devastating blast multiple explosions ripped through the body of the Elder Grimm, blasting it in half, sending the upper half of its body into the air as it faded into black dust. Red and orange pillars of flames reached for the heavens as fire and shrapnel from the destroyed boxcar flew everywhere from the final explosion. Velvet managed to cover the group from the worst of the explosion with a light copy of Crocea Mors' shield even as they hid behind the low brick walls of the adjoining rooftop garden. Ren and Nora took cover by smashing through the nearest doorway and jumping down the staircase, with the green ninja covering his partner protectively. The Vacuo Rangers on the rooftops took cover from the massive explosion behind whatever they could find.
As the lingering echo from the gigantic blast died down and the ruined, burned remnants of the boxcar lay all about the place along with plenty of rocks and debris that were inside of the Elder Deathworm. Littered around the huge deep crater which indicated where the humongous Grimm creature had previously been were pools of hot smouldering fire, most of them quickly becoming clouds of black cloying smoke while others continued to burn for some time. The massive explosion and the death of the Elder Grimm sent many of the Grimm hordes in the area fleeing only for some of them to be shot down by the reinforcements comprising of Vacuo Rangers, Desert Guards, police officers, Huntsman and Huntresses who had arrived at the scene.
Deactivating the shield, Velvet and the rest of Team CFVY all looked at their handiwork as they rose from behind the brick walls of the rooftop's garden, seeing barely any trace of the Elder Deathworm.
"We did it," Velvet spoke with awe in her voice, while Ren and Nora also came out from their hiding place to survey the area. Alongside them in ones and twos, the dirt-covered figures of other Vacuo Rangers emerged from the other adjacent rooftops, looking around to check that the Grimm Deathworm had been killed.
"We sure did!" Nora cheered happily, "Oh man, wait 'til the others hear about this!"
"That was close." Fox remarked, wiping the sweat and grime from his face.
"Too close. If it hadn't been for Tom's quick thinki- Tom!" Coco cried as their attention returned to the Allcroft's train engine, now slightly blown back due to the power of the shockwave.
Velvet and Yatsuhashi ran ahead, with the armored samurai bracing his gauntlets against the locked door to the engine compartment and pulling it open with a screech of metal for his smaller partner to dart inside. Coco and Fox brought up the rear, along with a couple of Vacuo Rangers who curiously wanted to see who was the hero who gave them a chance of defeating the Elder Deathworm.
"Tom!" Velvet cried out as she saw the Allcroft brother lying on the floor in front of the train's controls, the stinger of a Grimm Lancer having impaled him through his torso while a nasty bite wound could be seen on his left shoulder. Both wounds were oozing blood and shining with blue aura while an empty pistol was clutched in his right hand. Empty bullet casings were scattered around his feet, a testament to how many rounds he had fired into the Grimm Lancer which wounded him.
The rabbit Faunus knelt down in front of him and lifted his face with both of her hands, "Tom, are you okay? Speak to me!"
Tom let out a small, pained grunt as he raised his head up, "I…I managed to kill it…it almost had me, but I killed it." He gasped tiredly, groaning a little as he held his side which was bleeding slightly.
Velvet realized the Grimm Lancer that had gotten in was gone, so she smiled and said, "Looks like you did. Now, stop talking and let us get you out of there. You need some medical attention, badly."
"I…I take it the Deathworm is dead right?" Tom blurted as he was bodily helped up by Yatsuhashi.
"It's history." Velvet assured him as she pulled on his right hand to help him up, putting his right arm over her shoulders and helping him towards the door along with her samurai partner.
"Wait, my family photo…I can't leave it." Tom whispered.
Velvet nodded and gave him an understanding smile as she reached over and picked the photograph off the broken dashboard before helping Tom get out of the train through the slanted door.
"That looks like a bad bite." Coco remarked as she saw Velvet and Yatsuhashi help Tom onto the bridge, "And we better get that stinger out of your torso fast."
"Yeah, hurts a ton…especially the stinger." Tom said as he looked around, seeing just how utterly the Hau Bakuhatsu had destroyed the Elder Deathworm. "Whoa, you weren't kidding Velvet, it is history."
"Partially thanks to you." Coco congratulated, "That's some quick-thinking."
Tom smirked and replied, "That's why I'm number one."
They laid Tom beside his cooling train just as a Vacuo Ranger medic ran up along with a couple of other soldiers. Coco exchanged some words with the sergeant in charge of the small group, and he snapped an order for the medic to quickly give the Allcroft brother some emergency medical attention, patching up his wounds quickly to stem the bleeding.
"So you're the guy who gave our friends a ride through the deserts of Vacuo last year?" Nora asked while Ren helped the Vacuo Ranger medic in tending to Tom's wounds by using some of his own medical supplies.
"Yeah. I heard about how you lot totally kicked butt, exposed that crazy Adam guy for the psycho he was to the rest of the White Fang. Good work on that, happy I was able to help." Tom replied, wincing as the ranger medic gave him an injection while pressing a medical pack against his wounded torso.
"Well, you sure helped us today." Velvet told him with a smile.
"Indeed, and we ended up helping you as well. It was quite the close call on all accounts." Yatsuhashi voiced generally.
"Yeah, so what are you guys doing here anyway? I mean, this is one crazy coincidence." Tom pointed out, trying hard not to pass out from the pain while the ranger medic examined the Grimm Lancer's stinger which was still embedded in his torso.
"That it is, but a fortunate one. We helped you dispose of a boxcar full of dangerous explosive and you aided us in killing an Elder Grimm," Ren remarked, with Nora laughing at the surprised look on Tom's face when her partner mentioned the fact that the Deathworm they faced had been an Elder Grimm, "As for why we are here, I'm afraid we can't say for the time being."
"Speaking of why we're here, you think the others are doing okay?" Fox asked the group while the area was secured by a couple of more squads of Vacuo Rangers and even an elite Desert Guard rapid-response unit.
"I sure hope so." Coco said as she wiped the dust off her aviator sunglasses, "Because I'm not sure we are in any shape to provide any sort of backup for them since we have already depleted most of our dust supplies and overall fighting strength as well."
"True, but at least we have some Vacuo Rangers and Desert Guards here with us now." Velvet pointed out, "We can maybe get back to Shade Academy to help out with the battles taking place there."
"That's an option, at least we can get back in contact with Hyperion One and get ourselves resupplied." Ren agreed with a nod when something else caught their attention.
"Yes, the Elder Grimm has been killed. I repeat, the Elder Grimm has been killed." The Vacuo Ranger sergeant beside them spoke into his communication device, "Wait, say again? Repeat."
"What's wrong?" Ren asked the sergeant, who turned to looked at him with a worried expression.
"We have an serious Grimm problem at the Path of Perseverance downtown area, there's a major hole in the ground where more Grimm are coming out of. We need all the help we can get and any available units are to be redirected there immediately. My unit is pulling out of here…and so is Sergeant Diyo's, effective immediately."
"Then we are coming with you." Coco said as she glanced at the rest of their gathered group, "Besides, killing Grimm is what we do best, and you need every Huntsman and Huntress you can get." The Vacuo Ranger sergeant nodded at her words and answered, "You can all hitch a ride on the transport truck then, would that be okay with you all?"
"As long as there's enough space for all of us, I don't see any problem with that." Yatsuhashi replied.
"What about Tom?" Velvet pointed to the Allcroft brother who was propped up against his train engine, "We need to get him some serious medical help."
"We can bring him to Shade Academy, where their substantial medical facilities would tend to him." The Vacuo Ranger sergeant said before gesturing for his medic to help Tom up, "Don't worry, the medical staff there would definitely make sure he receives the proper medical attention."
"Okay, then it's settled." Coco clapped her gloved hands, "We follow the Vacuo Rangers and Desert Guards to Path of Perseverance to deal with their escalating Grimm problem, while Tom gets sent to Shade Academy for more specialized medical attention. Okay, let's move!"
Far off atop an evacuated apartment on Mosaka Street, Merrick watched the Elder Deathworm blow up from the inside through the scope of his sniper rifle. There was a deafening explosion followed shortly by a massive burst of flame spread outwards into the sky for several seconds, before being replaced by black clouds of acrid smoke.
"What just happened?!" Ante demanded to know as the rest of the Enforcer stood around, keeping watch through the various windows at the other battles taking place throughout the capital of the western Kingdom. Tom-Tom was administering some first aid to Little Steve's bleeding face, the larger Enforcer's facial muscles twitching every single time his associate applied some medical cream onto the cuts inflicted by Milo during the battle on Abu Dhabi expressway.
"I don't know how to tell you this boss, but it looks like those kids somehow managed to blow up the whole bloody giant Deathworm." Merrick reported in a surprised tone.
"Oh, fuck!" Ante shouted in anger as he kicked a piece of shattered masonry off the top of the building, "They should be inside of that thing being digested, how the hell did they manage to kill it?!"
"I saw some kind of boxcar on the railroad bridge through my scope, it must've had some explosives inside." Merrick speculated as he looked at the crime lord.
"Those little assholes always find some way outta gettin' themselves killed! That really pisses me off! Seriously, who or what do I need to get to even put one of them down for good?!" Ante bemoaned to himself before getting an idea, "Merrick, can you get 'em in your scopes and shoot out their freaking brains?"
"Sorry boss, can't see them from here. Way too many buildings, billboards and smokestacks blocking the way. Not to mention the columns of smoke as well." Merrick told his superior, though even if the sniper had been able to see the six teens he still wouldn't have shot any of them. Despite the marksman's crimes and allegiance to Salem's group and the terrible things he had done in the past, Merrick still had a code of honor that he would stick rigidly to no matter the circumstances.
Besides, the sniper Enforcer had to respect those teenagers for managing to pull a victory out of such a dire situation with minimal resources and time.
"Damn it to hell!" Ante ranted as he threw an explosive dagger into a barrier flanking the top of the roof, blowing that section into many shards of scrap metal to vent his anger while shouting out various obscenities while his Enforcers just watched in silence.
Executioner, who was standing by the main doorway with an inscrutable look behind his masked face, caught Merrick's elbow when the marksman walked past him and asked in a dangerously soft voice, "Does he always behave like that when things don't go his way?"
"Pretty much." Merrick shrugged his shoulders, "We're all used to his temper tantrums by now."
The crime lord stopped mid-curse when his scroll rang piercingly. Ripping it out of his trouser pocket he saw it was Trooper's name on the screen, and so he quickly answered it. Hopefully he'd have some good news for him after being humiliated by a group of teenagers.
"Trooper, you better tell me you and Fireball got away from that half-Grimm bitch and blond bastard and you still have the Aura Crystal! I need some good news right now!" He howled angrily into the scroll.
Ante's men watched him with interest and concern when they noticed his eyes widening and going unusually still.
The running battle between Qrow and Tyrian raged fiercely through the hallways of Shade Academy, with the blade of Reaper clashing repeatedly against the assassin's wrist blades accompanied by grunts of effort and gleeful snarls.
Qrow took a couple of hits from Tyrian's blasts which chipped away at his aura, but he managed to dash out of the range of the next wave of shots which hit the stone pillar behind him. The dusty Huntsman fired off Reaper's shotgun attachment whenever he got the chance, but the assassin avoided the shots with ease as he dashed from cover to cover.
While he couldn't hit Tyrian, the shotgun rounds at least kept the Fusion Faunus at a distance and gave him enough time to retreat further into the school.
"So, this is the great Qrow Branwen? So much for a challenge," Tyrian mocked as he stalked after Qrow.
The veteran Huntsman kept running as fast as he could down the empty hallways of the school, trying to find a good place where he could turn the tables on Callows and ambush him. Thankfully the layout of the combat school was still the same as he remembered it, and Qrow soon found what he was looking for in the form of the archway-like entrance to the academy's library.
Bursting through the tall wooden doors of the library that had images of renowned historical heroes carved onto their surface, Qrow ran over to the front desk and found the main switch panel, he flicked appropriate switches to turn off all of the lights in the library before dashing to take refuge into the semi-labyrinth of bookshelves and colonnade-like columns that held up the entire ceiling, swiftly jumping up to the second floor and slipping into the deep shadows behind a trio of tall shelves at the far end just in time.
The main entrance to the library burst open a second time as Tyrian Callows slammed through the doors, the psychotic smirk upon his face briefly illuminated by the lingering light from the halls for a brief second before those same doors closed behind him.
"Ah, a crow in the dark." Tyrian mused as he stalked cat-like into the darkened library, looking around the various levels for any sign of his target, "The wounded but quick and cunning crow versus the poisonous, deadly and relentless sting of the scorpion. Who shall be victorious, I wonder…little birdy?"
Qrow resisted the temptation to say some witty retort, but that wasn't important right now. What mattered was staying on top of the situation and taking out Callows, or at the very least beating him until he had no choice but to retreat. Mentally going over the trap he had been planning while leading Tyrian on a bit of a merry chase throughout Shade Academy, he watched the Fusion Faunus from the shadows above, remaining as silent as he possibly could as Salem's assassin sought to find him among the shadows.
"Isn't this fitting, Branwen?" Tyrian called evilly, "You claim to have been hunting me for a week or so, but now the tables have been turned!"
The psychotic-looking assassin noticed something in the corner of his eye and suddenly stabbed his scorpion tail out, impaling it through the head of a cardboard standee of a retired Huntsman turned writer who had given a lecture at the academy the week before. Qrow tightened his grip on the handle of Reaper, but otherwise said nothing lest he gave his hiding place away.
"Come to think of it, I'm really glad you are the one hunting me, Branwen…" Tyrian mused to himself as his eyes flicked from one shadowed alcove to another, "…of all the people I have met, you are probably one of the few who actually gave me something of a challenge during a fight. The others unfortunately just don't…measure up."
The avian Huntsman gritted his teeth, forcing himself to remain calm and focused as he searched about a way to temporarily divert his adversary's attention for a few seconds. Carefully reaching out with his free hand, Qrow randomly plucked a medium-sized book from the collection he was pressed up against.
As he weighed it in his hand and found it adequate for his plan of distraction, Qrow's eyes glanced at the title of the tome and felt the urge to groan; 'Hang In There! A Helpful Guide to Help Brighten Up Your Life!'
"And talk about being infamous as well!" The scorpion-tailed assassin continued cackling as he moved through the shifting shadows, "I know I have been considered notorious, but apparently you've also ticked off so many people that I'm really sure many of them would want to hang your head on their trophy wall…mine included!"
Qrow rolled his eyes at Tyrian's constant prattling, wishing that Salem's assassin would just shut up already. While he had owe quite a lot of people money and had gotten on the bad sides of more people than he could count, he also already know that there's also some others who wished him dead. But seeing that he was still alive and kicking he would still be willing to take his chances in terms of his survival.
"So…that makes your life quite valuable, Qrow Branwen. I hope you don't mind if I skip to the head of that queue and claim your head as a trophy, hm?" Tyrian jumped up onto the side of a column, using his wrist blades to scale it until he jumped off and landed atop one of the bookshelves, quietly calling out in a creepy sing-song voice, "Come out…come out…wherever you are…"
In one quick movement Qrow hurled the book across the expanse of the library, where it impacted onto the shelves opposite and knocked several other books over in a cascade of noise. Tyrian's head snapped towards the disturbance and he brought up his wrist claws, firing a salvo of machine gun fire into the bookshelves, blasting the books into drifting scraps of paper and reducing the shelves to broken pieces of wood.
Seizing upon the precious seconds he had bought for himself, Qrow sprinted in the opposite direction of the noise but his rapid footsteps soon gave his presence away. He cursed as he felt bullets blasting into the columns, the library's walls, destroying computer monitors and study tables, ripping through other racks of books on shelves, sending dust, papers and subject tags flying everywhere.
"You talk too damn much, Callows!" Qrow shouted before ducking into the shadows again, waiting for the right moment to strike while gripping Reaper tightly as he felt his aura healing him from the lucky hits Callows had landed on him. Thankfully Tyrian couldn't see where he had disappeared to for the moment, so he could catch his breath for the moment at least.
His acute hearing, as well as that of Tyrian's, perked up when they both heard one of the side entrances to the library suddenly open a little, shining a bit of light into the darkened room. Turning their heads from their separate positions, both Tyrian and Qrow looked over to the open door to see Luna's assistant Cedric trying to discreetly sneak out of the room.
Qrow narrowed his eyes a little, quickly surmising that the mid-mannered assistant had been hiding from the battle taking place throughout Shade Academy only to find himself in another one, and he had clearly failed at trying to sneak out.
"Well, well, well!" Tyrian grinned as he jumped off the top of the bookshelf and quickly dashed across the rows of others before landing nimbly in front of the shaking Cedric, kicking the door shut on the assistant's hand before he could get out. Grabbing him by his uniform, the Fusion Faunus slammed him into the nearby wall and jabbed his claw blades into Cedric's chest, "If it isn't Luna's dear assistant and our dear little spy Cedric."
Qrow felt his eyes widen at that little revelation but kept quiet for the time being as he moved behind the bookshelves on the second level. He had briefly wondered about who could potentially be the spy working for Salem Madame Viper had mentioned, and while he had a few potential candidates in mind he was definitely a little surprised that Salem had managed to plant one of her agents so close to yet another Guardian of Remnant.
"Mr. Callows, wait…please! I can explain!" Cedric began to beg while shaking like a leaf.
"Hmm? Then explain to me why you didn't warn us about how much extra security that was in here? Explain to me why you didn't tell us that Team Beacon, with several high profile targets my Lady Salem desires, was here as well? Is that what you'd like to explain?!" Tyrian ranted ferociously as he slammed Cedric into the wall again, this time bringing up his right wrist-blade to the shivering assistant's neck while his tail hovered around the face of the man who looked to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
"Wait! Let me explain! I wanted to warn you and the others but it was too risky! I wanted to tell you about Team Beacon and the other Maiden but I-"
"Another Maiden?! What the hell are you talking about? Is there another Maiden here?" Tyrian demanded to know, narrowing his gold eyes.
"Yes! That's the reason for all the extra security in Shade! I couldn't risk exposing myself, with the upcoming attack and all…" Cedric excused, speaking quickly now.
"Hmm…this situation keeps on getting more and more complicated." Tyrian remarked before he realized something, "My thanks for the useful tip, Cedric…and it also seems that your usefulness to my Goddess had come to an end. Come to think of it, the security cameras aren't off in here…are they?"
Cedric's face paled further as he meekly spluttered out, "N-no…"
Tyrian smiled evilly before throwing Luna's assistant into the bookshelf opposite. Cedric fell to the ground groaning as more books fell upon him, hampering his weak attempts to get up and run, not that he would be able to take another step before Tyrian killed him. The crazed assassin grabbed Cedric again and chittered, "Now, how shall I kill you? Slash to the throat? Poison sting to the gut? Disembowel you with my wrist-blades? Maybe I should knock you out and bring you back with me, and allow my Goddess to use a Seer on you?" He had a pensive look on his face for a moment before adding, "Or…perhaps I should reach into your mouth and cut off your uvula and let you choke and drown in your own blood? That's been a method of delicious murder I've been thinking about lately. Shall I give you the honor of being to die from it?"
Cedric let out a cry of fear and Tyrian's crazed smile widen, "Oh that's the face I love to see! Here we go!" However, before he could perform his latest murder, Qrow slammed into Tyrian out of nowhere, a boot coiling into the assassin's face and sending him crashing into the bookshelves.
"You, stay down. You're in deep shit." Qrow growled to Cedric before turning around and saw Tyrian striking back, landing with his hands first atop the bookshelf behind them before swinging downwards and sending Qrow flying away with a kick to the back. Qrow used his momentum to perform a quick backflip, landed and drew out Reaper in its full glory, stopping himself from sliding too far away by stabbing it into the floor of the library and coming to a halt. He then charged and came in slashing at Tyrian, who ducked underneath the swinging blade and lifted himself up with one hand, twirling around rapidly and bringing his boot down on Qrow's skull before kicking him right in the face, chipping away a slight chunk of the Huntsman's aura.
Qrow quickly recovered and fired at the incoming Tyrian, only for the assassin to sidestep the shotgun rounds at the last possible second which instead impacted onto the back of Cedric who was trying to run away, knocking the escaping man off balance, knocking his head into the wall and falling unconscious onto the floor.
Tyrian glanced at the downed spy, then pressed his hand against the side of his head and let out a crazed laugh. He spun around to face Qrow, but the Huntsman wasn't there anymore. The assassin was abruptly slammed into the ground after taking a hit from the blunt end of Reaper smashing into his head, but he rolled quickly to his feet and crouched down on his hands and legs, doing his best to ignore the pain while his aura flickered as he looked up at Qrow again, giggling in a maniacal fashion.
"Surprises huh? Gotta love 'em!" He gleefully said before he struck again, jumping upwards and kicking Qrow twice, once in the face and again in the chest. Qrow stumbled backwards a few steps but swung Reaper out in time to parry Tyrian's wrist blades. They broke apart and the alcoholic Huntsman threw out a diagonal slash but Tyrian jumped into the air, throwing off his coat and throwing it down at Qrow before scrambling up onto the second level, balancing himself on the handrail as Qrow recovered and looked up.
"Oh, this is the kind of fight I've been waiting for! My Goddess will definitely reward me wonderfully for this day! Not only will Vacuo be crippled, but I'll bring her two Maidens, the Aura Crystal, and your niece and her friends after killing you!" Tyrian cackled.
"Not in this life, bug man." Qrow spat as he eyed Tyrian's twitching scorpion tail, " Don't count your chickens before they hatch."
"We'll see, Branwen!" Tyrian guffawed before he launched himself off the second floor and landed behind Qrow, his scorpion tail wrapping around Reaper's blade and nearly ripping it from Qrow's hands. Luckily the avian Huntsman held firm and kicked out at the assassin's legs, forcing him to let go and Qrow promptly began striking hard and fast at his opponent.
The two traded and evaded blows until Qrow swung Reaper at Tyrian's head, but the scorpion-human hybrid ducked just in time before punching Qrow in the chest to knock him back. Qrow quickly rolled upright and began swinging himself left and right rapidly to avoid being stabbed by the deadly stinger on the end of Tyrian's tail, which he suspected might be poisonous.
The two kept exchanging attacks in a whirlwind of clashing blades, punches and kicks, with Tyrian defending quite well against Qrow's forceful assaults until the assassin sensed an opening and struck out, slamming his bladed weapons towards Qrow's face and torso. The rough-mannered Huntsman managed to block Tyrian's wrist blades with Reaper, grazing his cheek but thankfully his aura healed the wounds quickly before Tyrian sent him flying with a powerful hit from his tail and legs, knocking Reaper out of his hands as Qrow went sailing towards a row of desktop computers. He crashed through the desks, scattering broken computer equipment in many directions and rolled onto the floor, taking another vicious kick in the gut when Tyrian dashed in front of him, knocking him across into a bookshelf and dislodging many books from their shelves.
Tyrian chuckled quietly as he approached Qrow while shaking his head, "You're such a failure, Branwen. All of you so called 'Guardians of Remnant' are! In your hubris, you allowed those kids, including your nieces, to get involved in something so out of their league that I'd swear Ozpin was working for my Goddess in secret and was playing all of you as pawns!"
"Shut the fuck up!" Qrow seethed as he pushed himself up.
"Agreed, we've had enough talk for now!" Tyrian declared as he stabbed his scorpion tail outwards to kill Qrow. Before the stinger could impale itself into him, the dusty Huntsman rolled aside and leapt up into the air, flying outwards and over Tyrian's head, land onto the floor behind him, roll and grab Reaper which was impaled onto the main desk before coming up again in a guard posture just in time to deflect another sting of Tyrian's tail which impacted into its blade.
Qrow retaliated with a kick as he twirled around and swung Reaper at Tyrian who quickly leapt backwards out of reach to avoid being lethally cut. The was a pause as the two fighters stared each other down in front of the main desk.
"Ah, you truly are a skilled Huntsman!" Tyrian praised, "Unlike most of the folks I've fought , who were honestly quite boring."
"And you're truly a freak!" Qrow retorted as Tyrian knelt down, his ugly grin making his face look like some sort of gargoyle.
"Ha! Flattery will get you everywhere!" The villainous assassin shouted as he leapt at Qrow one more, and the two skilled warriors met once again as they continued their fight. Qrow parried both wrist blades narrowly as Tyrian tried to cut him, then quickly switching his weapon from sword to scythe form which he slashed at Tyrian who jumped backwards to avoid being cut in half by Reaper's deadly blade.
Tyrian leapt atop the main desk and jumped off it, coming down wrist blades first aiming to eviscerate Qrow who avoided it just in time by putting some distance between him and the assassin. Qrow lashed out with a series of quick cuts and slashes, but the Fusion Faunus always weaved out of reach of Reaper's scythe blade, constantly tumbling away on his hands and feet until he landed behind the unconscious Cedric.
Ozpin's agent felt his eyes widen when Tyrian grabbed Cedric by his collar and held the spy in front of him with his wrist blades dangerously close to his neck.
"I almost forgot about our little spy here. Oh well, better safe than sorry!" Tyrian gave an insane grin before his scorpion tail rammed through Cedric's back and out of his torso in a spatter of blood. Luna's assistant was forced awake by the sheer pain, screaming in horrific agony which was abruptly silenced when Tyrian slit his throat with both wrist blades, creating an 'X' over Cedric's bare neck which bled profusely. Then he let go of the spy who fell onto the blood-stained floor, dead.
"NO!" Qrow cried out in anger and shock. With the spy dead, the chance that he might capture Cedric alive and interrogate him for any useful information was forever lost.
"Well, at least the spy served his purpose. Now that Cedric has been exposed he's really no use to my Goddess anymore." Tyrian commented with an apathetic shrug, "Now then, I believe we were still fighting?"
His insane grin spread across his face again before shooting straight towards Qrow, who charged as well. Both men bounded into the air where their respective weapons met with one loud, powerful clang that knocked both of them back from each other.
Qrow grunted as he landed and switched Reaper back into its sword form. This was definitely going to be one hell of a fight.
Chief Librarian Vidya, the head archivist of the Grand Temple of Vacuo, had been going about his regular duties when the attacks began, and he had made it an immediate priority to seal off the inner sanctum of the Grand Temple's archives so that the ancient books, scrolls and texts stored within its age-old walls would not be stolen or damaged, while also detailing half a dozen of his most promising acolytes with a contingent of temple guardians to stay behind in order to protect those priceless knowledge. In addition, he had also ordered that other reading rooms and outer chambers throughout the huge archive building to remain open so that civilians who had unfortunate enough to be caught up in the attack could take shelter there. The exterior of the archives building was currently undergoing the lockdown process as well, with all the windows covered by thick metal slabs which came out from their sills and the temple guards both on and off duty running to and fro around the main plaza to whatever destinations that require their attentions. At the main majestic-looking archway leading into the Grand Temple, the largest concentration of monks and abbots guided the terrified civilians into the fortified building while brave temple guardians did their best to fend off anything hostile approaching the enormous temple.
Or so they thought.
Vidya was a Jaguar Faunus with the build of a thick-set man, with shoulder length dark grey hair that was tied into a simple curtain at the back of his head and stern yellow-grey eyes that conveyed his no-nonsense attitude to anyone who met him, with a hard and well-worn face and a neatly kept beard lining his chin. His burly figure was clothed in robes of bright red accented with gold and white trim, and around the waist of his robes he wore an unpretentious brown belt that carried quite a number of chained keys and religious totems, and an antique necklace of copper brown prayer beads adorned his neck. A simple ceremonial dagger could be seen holstered at his belt, with detailed carvings etched into the blade's surface and bound tightly with thick leather cord. He gripped that dagger, dreading to use it but was completely willing to if necessary.
The temple guardians, as well as every monk and worker who knew how to use a weapon, went out to defend the various other entrances and temple grounds from attack and help shepherd the frightened civilians to safety inside of various buildings within the temple's external high walls. Vidya himself stood behind a towering column at the top of wide stepped stone staircase that led up to the main entrance, doing what he can to help direct the terrified innocents inside.
"Quickly, quickly!" He shouted loudly to be heard by the fleeing people around him as lasers, bullets and shells pounded against the column he had taken refuge behind, the black-armored with red highlights figures of the robotic Grimm Knights descending upon the main plaza outside of the Great Temple. The heavily-armed robots were killing every living thing in sight with their mounted weapons, and were fended off by the temple guardians' spears which could transform into heavy-caliber rifles which they blasted relentlessly away at the steadily approaching robotic menaces. There had also been other panicked reports that other teams of temple guardians have encountered Grimm creatures as well, no doubt attracted by the fear and terror of the civilians who had fled for the safety of the Grand Temple.
Vidya looked over to the eastern perimeter of the temple grounds, where he knew Chiyen and Bjorn were helping to lead the defense of the Solaria Crescent Orphanage while a good bulk of the temple guardians were protecting the main sanctuary itself, lest it fall to the Grimm hordes or the enemy. He prayed that the children there were safe, as well the sisters and priests who had evacuated to the other buildings.
Vidya cried out in surprise as a temple worker named Deke pushed a Sheep Faunus woman out of the way of incoming laser fire, only to be shot himself at near point-blank range by a Grimm Knight which had multi-barreled laser cannons on its arms. The laser blasts punched into Deke who only managed to let out a scream before he was sent flying backwards into a nearby pond, and his spilled blood soon turned the water red.
Clenching his fist, Vidya ran out through the fleeing civilians and grabbed the terrified woman's hand tightly, pulling her to safety as one of the temple's physicians ran to tend to Deke's wounds after the worker was hauled out by a temple guardian and carried bodily through the main archway while another guard cleaved the murderous Grimm Knight in half with his guardian spear.
Vidya muttered a small prayer for Deke before telling the woman, "Go, get inside my dear! Quickly!"
A pair of temple guardians ran towards him, one using his guardian spear to impale a Beowolf and then chop off its head while the other emptied several rounds into a Grimm Knight that reduced it to shattered bits and pieces as they ran to join the Chief Librarian behind the columns.
"Chief Librarian, you need to get inside! We can't afford to lose you!" The first guard spoke quickly as he changed the guardian spear's rifle magazine while the second guard began defending the current position, slamming the shining blade of his spear through the red visor of a Grimm Knight that landed right in front of them. The latter warrior then wrenched his spear sideways, bisecting the robot into two separate pieces which crashed to the ground twitching and sparking.
Vidya grimaced as he looked around the embattled plaza, surveying the deteriorating situation. Scattered temple guardians fought with Grimm Knights and Grimm creatures which managed to get into the grounds, while the populace of Vacuo fled around them towards the massive gates that led back into the cathedral for safety. It would only be a matter of time before they had to close the main gates in order to save the majority of the civilians, while the rest would undoubtedly meet a horrible fate.
"Sir, please! We have aid in the form of students from Shade Academy, we'll be fine! We will get as many people inside as we can, but your knowledge and experiences cannot be lost. Please, for all of our sakes, get inside." The guard pleaded before turning around and fired his rifle at another charging Grimm Knight.
Vidya grunted before nodding reluctantly, "Very well, just don't let up! Save as many innocents as you can! May Oum go with you!" He told them before carefully retreating into the main archive building, following the ragged files of other temple staff and civilians who had gone in before him to seek refuge.
He got inside of the Grand Temple, the main doors of which were slightly open at the moment and heavily guarded by several more groups of reserve temple guardians who were more than ready to keep any Grimm beast or robot from getting inside. Already more than half of those guards were already firing the rifle function of their respective guardian spears from the sides of the temple's main doors and the balconies above, shooting down as many threatening targets as possible.
The Jaguar Faunus gripped his necklace of prayer beads with one hand, hoping that by some miracle this heinous attack would come to an abrupt end with minimal casualties, but knew that it was wishful thinking on his part judging from what he was seeing.
Suddenly a hand grabbed hold of his shoulder, "Apologies sir, are you Chief Librarian Vidya?" A rather well-educated sounding voice spoke up.
Vidya turned around to see a tall man with slightly tanned skin, beige eyes, and a rather large and immaculately-kept black moustache, wearing a dark yellow shirt under a violet vest, which was covered in turn by an expensive-looking dark gray jacket with yellow trims over it. A pinkish-red scar occupied his right cheek, stretching all the way to his temple, probably a past reminder of some forgotten fight in the streets of Vacuo City. The head librarian vaguely recognized the man as one of the civilians, no doubt a businessman, who had taken refuge inside earlier.
"Yes, I am." He replied, "Is that a problem?"
"As a matter of fact, yes." The scarred businessman mentioned, "My name is Brian Clemens, I took refuge here with the others on the streets when I got caught up in this dreadful attack when I was doing my business errands. I was following the other civilians to safety when your monks and junior archivists apparently have some grave matter of importance they need you for and asked one of us refugees to go look for you. I volunteered, and it's a bloody miracle I found you in all of this mess."
"Calm down, sir." Vidya assured him as they moved into a nearby tiled corridor with very few people, "What is the message they wanted me to hear?"
"I've no idea, Father. They said it was something very important, and only that I should tell you that they require your presence at the temple archives immediately. I presume it was only something for those who work there would know. They've busy tending to the wounded and various other matters, so they asked me to go fetch you." The man explained a little hurriedly but clearly, "They're currently hold up in the western reading wing."
Vidya wondered what this could be about as he had given strict orders for the assigned archive acolytes and temple guardians to make sure no one without the proper authorization could enter the main temple archives, as they contained a great many secrets within the underground vaults. It was one of the most heavily protected places in the Kingdom of Vacuo due to its religious significance and cultural importance.
And one of those secrets in particular, known only to a mere handful of individuals including Vidya himself, was paramount to the safety of all of Remnant itself.
"Very well. You have my gratitude for alerting me to this matter, Mr. Clemens. I'll handle the matter personally." Vidya thanked the man with a quick but polite bow before rushing deeper into the archive building, but not before informing yet another group of temple guardians to reinforce the main doors open for as long as possible as more civilians rushed in behind him.
A few tense minutes later, the Chief Librarian reached the western reading wing and felt it deep in his gut that something was wrong when he saw the doors slightly ajar, the lights at low setting, and the sounds of muffled sobbing coming from inside the chamber. When his hand pushed open the doors, his heart and stomach dropped into a bottomless pit as he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the shocking scene in front of him.
Throughout the west hall and its reading chambers were over a hundred civilians of all races, genders and ages as well as some nuns, monks, priests and temple acolytes who were all forced to be on their knees with their hands behind their heads, looks of terror and fear etched on their faces. Surrounding them from the upper levels of the hall were at least two dozen Grimm Knights which kept the weaponry such as machine guns, laser blasters, underslung chainsaw blades, flechette launchers, all primed and ready to fire if anyone got out of line.
"What in Oum's name is happening here?" He cried out as a pair of Grimm Knights turned and fixed him with their glaring red visors, simultaneously aiming their arm-mounted laser cannons at him in smooth whines of hydraulic movements.
Vidya instinctively grabbed the dagger on his belt and was about to lunge for the alarm panel opposite the wall beyond the doors when…
"Ah, ah, ah! Don't move a muscle, Chief Librarian." He heard the voice of the messenger as the latter came up from behind, and felt his blood run cold, "Or I'll have these Grimm Knights redecorate the entirety of this reading hall with the blood and viscera of these innocent people."
Vidya visibly shuddered at the imagined thought of such a terrible thing happening and quickly surmised as he turned to face the pretender, "You're part of this attack on the city?" He mentally cursed himself for being too preoccupied to realize he had been tricked.
"Oh Vidya, let's not waste our time with stating the obvious." Now without his earlier disguise; Arthur Watts spoke smugly as he strolled into the reading hall as though he owned it, metallic gauntlets forming around his hands from within his sleeves, "My name is Arthur Watts. Now, I believe you have something my employer desires very much, which is hidden deeply and securely within this temple's archives."
"You'll have to be more specific, Mr. Watts." Vidya retorted, "The archives of this Grand Temple house many old relics, tomes and treasures."
"Ah, that's true. But you see…the thing is that my employer seeks is a very specific about one particular item that's locked within your deepest vaults." Watts said as his green eyes focused on the Jaguar Faunus who was glaring at him, "So let's just say I'm looking for the proper…directions."
Watts allowed his lips to curl upward a little as he enjoyed the stunned look that dawned on Vidya's face, whose yellow-grey eyes widened in horror as he realized what Watts was really after.
"You will never lay your hands on the map." The Jaguar Faunus seethed angrily.
"Thank you for confirming that it's here," Watts chuckled as he walked around Vidya, "On the contrary, I think I will…and you're going to take me to it, give it to me, and let me leave this place without so much as a call for help."
"And if I refuse?" Vidya snarled in defiance.
"You will do it." Watts told him simply, "…or else I will order the Grimm Knights here to start executing these hostages. And to show that I'm completely serious, here's a little demonstration…"
Raising one of his gauntleted hands, Watts snapped his fingers. Immediately, the Grimm Knights' visors lit up and they snapped to attention, their weapon arrays all searching and alighting on their chosen targets. Vidya swallowed as he looked around in horror, realizing what this enemy agent and his mechanical enforcers were ready to do. Rattling and whining sounds were heard throughout the hall as ammunition were cycled into gun chambers and laser blaster, a massacre just waiting to happen.
"So yes, you will give me the map to the Relic of Destruction…or I will have these robots begin exterminating of all these innocent people. Men, women, and children. Human and Faunus. Young and old. And all these nuns and monks…these people who you know, who practically see you every day." Watts continued calmly, looking Vidya in the eyes, "Tell me, Chief Librarian…would you ever be able to forgive yourself for allowing this to happen? Even if it was for some noble greater good, would you ever be able to step foot inside these hallowed halls again when you have all of their deaths on your conscience?"
He paused dramatically, very much in control of the situation before whispering up to Vidya's face, "Or more accurately, knowing that you let all these innocent people die over such a simple request?"
Vidya shuddered as his face flinched away from Watt's words, because he knew that this devious man was right.
"Now, while I would very much prefer to do this without any bloodshed I am also quite capable of it if necessary." Watts gestured with his gauntleted fingers, "So, what will it be? Will you honor my request to give me the map, or will you willingly have the blood of innocents in your actions?"
The Chief Librarian was silent for a tense moment, no doubt thinking about the choices he had been given. While he knew that giving the enemy agent the map to the Relic of Destruction goes against every single oath he had sworn when he took up the mantle of Chief Librarian, he simply couldn't watch as the people he had also sworn to protect be massacred by the Grimm Knights.
Vidya eventually sighed and answered, "It seems that I have no choice. Follow me."
"Of course. By the way, if any of you try to escape it will be instant death, as I already have some extra Grimm Knights keeping guard outside to make sure no temple guardians will stumble upon you all. So there's no need to expect any rescue until I'm finished here." Watts told the shivering and whimpering crowd before turning to Vidya and smiled, "After you, Chief Librarian. I would also advise you not to try anything."
Vidya simply shot him a look of absolute loathing before he led the way to the main archival chamber with Watts a step behind him, and having two Grimm Knights aiming their multi-barreled laser blasters at his back. Another half-dozen Grimm Knights marched robotically behind them, bringing up the rear with their clanking footsteps.
As they walked down the empty halls and heard loud echoing sounds coming from the intense fights outside the Grand Temple of Vacuo, Vidya asked quietly, "If you'd humor me, Mr. Watts…how did you get these robots past the temple's defenses?"
"Since you have been cooperative, I don't see why I shouldn't answer that question," Watts chuckled as they marched towards the sealed off inner sanctum of the Grand Temple archives where the most precious texts, various assorted artifacts, and oldest tomes of information were carefully kept, "We had inside information telling us about the ancient catacombs and tunnels that run below the sight of this grand temple and the academy, as well as an oft-forgotten passageway that come up here in particular. It was quite easy for these Grimm Knights to just sneak in in the middle of the night and lay in wait until I give the command to act."
The Chief Librarian remained silent as he absorbed the information, mentally hoping he would have a chance to find the traitor himself and exact some measure of justice. It wasn't long before they reached the main door to the archives' inner sanctum, and Vidya didn't need to be told to open it. Wordlessly he entered his password onto the security keypad and then placed his right hand on the scanner beneath, all the while trying not to look the weapons the Grimm Knights have pointed at his head and chest.
There was a flash of green light on the security panel, and the powerful, thick doors of reinforced metal and concrete opened up slowly to reveal the six acolyte monks who had studied under him as well as around eight additional temple guardians scattered throughout the cavernous room armed with their guardian spears. They all turned or looked up from their desks just in time to see Vidya and Watts, along with the Grimm Knights which had flanked them both on either side.
"Stop them!" Vidya cried before he shoved himself away from Watts, hitting the tiled floor of the archives' inner sanctum as rattling gunfire erupted above him. He pushed himself up in time to see one of his acolytes who didn't manage to take cover in time being blasted into the wall of bookshelves opposite from a salvo of laser discharge. His five other companions, who were also armed with smaller ceremonial swords, quickly took cover behind whatever furniture they could find while the temple guardians within the inner sanctum charged forwards, swinging their spears while dodging machine gun bullets and sizzling laser blasts.
Watts sighed as he activated his gauntlets, electric sparks jolting out of them as he entered combat with the guardians. One of the temple's armored warriors brought his guardian spear downwards in a two-handed grip, slicing a Grimm Knight neatly in two halves before removing the machine gun-firing arms of another, then charged straight towards him.
The villainous doctor sidestepped the guardian's next blow smoothly, grabbed the shaft of the guardian spear with his gauntlets and kicked the legs out of the temple warrior. He fell onto his knees with a grunt of pain, and Watts chuckled as he delivered an electrified punch to the guardian's red-cowled head and discharged enough volts of electricity through his body to make him thrash and judder violently. The temple guardian collapsed in a twitching heap and Watts simply moved on to his next target, throwing the guardian spear aside.
Vidya kept his head down as he crawled towards the security console at the main desk in the middle of the inner sanctum as the battle raged all round him, hoping that his acolytes and guardians would be enough to keep Watts and his robots busy while he called for help, or at the very least sound the alarm that the Grand Temple's archives had come under attack from the enemy.
His meagre hope ran out as before he could reach the console he needed to trigger the alarm, the unconscious body of one of his acolytes slammed down in front of him, his red robes singed by electrical zaps and his face twitching from the electric punch he had taken only mere moments ago. It was shortly followed by a sickening crunch as the last temple guardian was brought down by a bone-shattering punch in the chest by a Grimm Knight which unloaded several bullets into him and left the warrior in a wrecked, bloodied mess.
Watts strode forward through the carnage, delivering a kick to Vidya's sternum which sent him sprawling and then putting his gauntleted fist through the console screen at the main desk, destroying the last thin ray of hope the Chief Librarian had carefully concealed until the very last moment.
"For shame, Father." Watts scolded harshly, his professional manner all but gone, "That was brave, but very foolish." He reached out with a sparking gauntlet, grabbed the Jaguar Faunus and hoisted him up as the Grimm Knights blasted the remaining acolytes unconscious with ease, though one of them did have to rip out the blade of the guardian spear that had been stabbed into its torso which left a sparking gash at its right hip. Watts slammed Vidya hard against the nearest book-covered wall and snapped, "However, you have my compliments for your continued defiance in the face of adversity. You see, I'm a patient man but even I have my limits. Pull something like that again, and I'll order the Grimm Knights to redecorate the west hall with the blood of the hostages!"
He threw Vidya forward but the Chief Librarian managed to prevent himself from falling by hanging onto the side of a reading lectern, and demanded harshly, "Now, give me the damn map before I give the kill command."
Vidya sighed in defeat as he hobbled his way over to a large slab of artistically carved-up rock that depicted an old historical Faunus warrior wielding a powerful sword against the Grimm, which was placed into the main wall at the far end of the inner sanctum. The senior librarian entered another password on a keypad that revealed some sort of scanning device, in which he rolled up his robed sleeve and bared his arm before he took up the ceremonial dagger hanging a his belt and cut his palm, allowing a few drops of his own blood to drip onto the scanner's extended plate which collected the red droplets.
There were a few seconds of whirring sounds as the blood sample was subjected to the security system's scanners, followed by a chime that the verification process was complete, "Blood Sample Identification Positive. Welcome, Chief Librarian Vidya." A female robotic voice whispered in greeting.
The steel moulding surrounding the intricately-carved rock lit up before the large chunk of mineral began to rise into the air slowly, pushed out by a series of mechanical arm-like devices and pistons to reveal a small room which had a single glass case which enclosed a small stand completely. Upon the stand laid a document, an olden scroll that was bathed in the cold white light which shone down from above. The scroll would have looked like any of the thousands of scrolls stored on the bookshelves outside, except for the fact that it was kept in one of the most secure places on Remnant due to the secrets it contained within its pages and its existence known to a mere handful of individuals.
Watts and Vidya carefully stepped inside and walked towards the objective of Watt's mission, with the doctor turning to Vidya and asked, "I take it all of the security measures of this vault have been fully disabled?"
"Yes. I am currently deactivating the final defenses." Vidya answered as he inputted some more codes into the control panel in front of glass case, shutting off the laser sensor grid and hidden automatic gun-turrets within the vault itself.
As the pair of Grimm Knights kept Vidya in their gunsights, Watts smirked in triumph as he approached the glass case containing the ancient document unopposed, "Ah, another piece of the grand puzzle." He promptly slammed a gauntleted fist through the glass case, shattering it and picking up the paper scroll.
Vidya shuddered at the desecration of such a holy artifact and looked away, cursing his weakness.
Watts withdrew his gauntlet and weighed the seemingly average-looking scroll within his hands. It was rather bare bones in terms of its appearance, with nothing whatsoever to suggest the power it possessed within. But what it did have written inside its simple cover was very much important, as it contained the directions to one of the Four Relics of Remnant that Salem desired.
"You have my thanks, Chief Librarian. Rest assured this information is now truly in the best hands, and my employer shall make good use of it." Watts assured him smugly as he began to walk away, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have one more person to meet before I take my leave. Would you care to join me? Not that you have a choice…"
"May Oum and the Four Gods forgive me…" Vidya muttered under his breath.
Watts shook his head, "Religious fool."
"For what I have to do!" The senior librarian finished as he suddenly exploded into motion with his ceremonial dagger in his hand, aiming to plunge it into Watt's back.
Before he knew what was happening; his adversary had sidestepped the attack and caught the dagger-wielding hand by the wrist, and twisted it painfully causing Vidya to drop his weapon. He cried out as Watts sprung up and slammed his electrified gauntlets into the Jaguar Faunus's chest and face, shocking him with terrible amounts of electricity for several seconds. When the doctor was finally done and released Vidya, smoke visibly curled from his face as the moaning Chief Librarian crashed to the tiled floor.
"Damn it all!" Watts snapped angrily, and was about to order the Grimm Knights to begin shooting when he stopped and collected himself. He tucked the tome within his jacket and smoothed his clothing, before drawing a black and red-accented pistol from underneath his jacket and pointed it at Vidya's head.
"Any last words, Father Vidya?" He leaned down at the Chief Librarian's pitifully spasming form.
"You…will never…get away…with this desecration…" Vidya's mouth slurred his words as his limbs twitched out of control, his yellow-grey glaring hatefully at Watts.
"Is that so? I believe I very well would." Watts replied before pulling the trigger of his pistol and fired a shot that lodged itself in the middle of Vidya's forehead, killing him. Leaving the cold corpse behind him as he exited the secret vault, the agent of Salem mused to himself, "Oh well, I suppose it won't be too difficult for my skills to persuade Sister Rosea for the other piece of information…"
Whistling a merry tune, he walked somewhat leisurely out of the battle-torn inner sanctum with the remaining active Grimm Knights following him silently as they made for a side exit facing the Solaria Crescent Orphanage.
To Be Continued...
This chapter was co-written by Relentless Crusader.
Check out new art of Soul Seer by Noodles919 on DeviantArt!
Sorry these chapters are taking so long, but RC has a job now and he can't edit as rapidly as he used to due to his responsibilities.
I saw Bumblebee, and it was pretty good, though I wouldn't say it was the best Transformers movie, and I had a pretty good Christmas season, and hopefully all of you did as well.
If you liked this story fave, follow, and review. Some feedback on what's good and what's not would be appreciated, thanks for everything guys.