Team RWBY stared at the screen, utterly speechless, this man readily admitted that he was responsible for it.
"What?!" Blake was the first to speak up.
"Who even is he?" Weiss affirmed everyone else's thoughts.
"He has to be lying or something." Ruby said in disbelief.
"But then who would go to much trouble just to hijack a news station and say that? Seems a bit risky."
The video was starting to go to static again, but it came back. It was clear that the people at VNN were trying to regain control but were fighting a losing battle.
"The attack was done as retaliation for what the White Fang did to us two days ago."
"What could possibly warrant the killing of dozens of people?" Blake carried a sarcastic tone in her voice, she rolled her eyes and continued to listen.
The man took a deep breath, as the green screen image of the pattern behind him distorted for a split second.
"On a standard reconnaissance mission, a team of my soldiers were assaulted by agents of the White Fang, causing deaths and much injury."
The man spoke with a professional tone, his face was completely serious.
He really seemed like the real deal.
"His men were attacked, it makes sense why he would want revenge."
Blake's face soured at Weiss's comment
"It still doesn't give him the right to kill dozens of people."
Everyone seemed to agree
"Still we aren't even sure if he's telling the truth." Weiss replied
"Of course, you may want proof to this claim, one of the soldiers during the attack on the White Fang had camera footage of the event, one of the Comanches also had a camera during our retaliation, and we have submitted these recordings to the proper authorities."
"What's a Comanche?" Ruby asked
Nobody seemed to be able to answer her
"Still, we don't even know who exactly he is." Yang asked the question that everyone watching was asking.
"He said he's a general." Ruby answered
"Though, as far as I'm aware, neither Vacuo nor Mistral has a professional military, if he was a general from Atlas, then I'm sure he would not have to hijack this news station." Weiss gave her explanation as 'Kirkman' continued to talk
"Now, you may be wondering who I am and why I have claimed myself responsible for this attack. Well, I am a General of a nation known as the United States of America, we are made up of multiple military operatives and people who choose not to align themselves with the four kingdoms."
"What?!" Everyone yelled
"So he's not from any kingdom?!" Weiss was practically screaming, wait, no, she was screaming.
Blake's angry look turned into one of surprise "That makes no sense, if what the survivor said is true, how can an independent 'nation' have so much power that they took down a heavily guarded White Fang base with four guys and some bullheads?!"
"Uhhh, what's a nation" Ruby meekly asked.
"It's a term used to identify a large group of people. It was used prior to the Great War, but most nations fell through after that."
"We did what we believe is a justified retaliation, we are not hostile to anyone who does not provoke us. Thank you for listening."
The video cut off, as the screen went back the static, the image of a female news reported and the VNN logo on the bottom started to slowly form with the static, the distortion grew less and less, and then finally, the image was clear.
"What the - oh uhh, we seem to be back on air, we are sorry for that interruption… Our um ahem, staff our working on finding out what happe-"
"Cut. Cut!" Someone off screen said
Then just like that, the news cut.
And with that, team RWBY and everyone else who tuned in to VNN that day, were left absolutely perplexed.
FOB Juno
1230 hours
Two days later…
Kirkman was on his desk, in front of him, his breakfast… or lunch at this point, a meal consisting of scrambled eggs and toast. To him, nothing embodied beauty in simplicity more than eggs and toast, he dug in.
The days earlier were long and tiring.
He had made an announcement to all the people of the now named Remnant about the attack on the now also named, White Fang. He had to give it to the USCYBERCOM, their cyber team was able to dig up so much in just a few hours, they were even able to hijack a news station to get him that announcement.
But in exchange for telling the entire world that they were the cause for a large scale attack on people of their world, the chances of them attacking or finding FOB Juno, soon to be changed to FOB Remnant, were high.
As such, the base was now on high alert, anticipating an attack that may come especially after such an announcement. Some in FOB Juno even criticized him for making that announcement, but in his opinion, not making that announcement would only be delaying the inevitable, as the bombing was guaranteed to have left at least a few survivors, and he was certain that once interrogated, they would blab about the attack on the marines just a few days prior.
So the announcement was a semi attempt at peace.
He wasn't sure yet if that attempt at peace bore fruit, as the last piece of information he got from the cyber team was from approximately nine hours ago about how the people of the Kingdom of Vale were now investigating the authenticity of the hijacking and whether or not the information stated was true. There was so far no news about the proof they sent in, but the situation was still fresh, therefore making many assumptions wasn't a good idea.
He spread some of the eggs on top of the last piece of bread and finished it, he was done eating, and with that he was done with his rest, he had much to do for today, he put away his plate and stood up, ready to walk up to the designated room of the Cyber team in the command center, but he was then interrupted by a familiar man in a lab coat bursting through his door without knocking.
"Good morning, general." Benjamin Steele with a bottle of Buffalo Trace and two small glasses walked to Kirkman.
"It's afternoon, Benjamin." Kirkman sat back down, ready to hear what Benjamin had to say now.
"Really? Hell, my body clock has been so fucked, I don't even know anymore."
Benjamin sat down on the chair in front of the desk, and put down both glasses and poured himself some bourbon, he brought his hand up and gestured to the glass in front of is, Kirkman nodded his head, so he poured him some too, it got to around a third of the glass before Kirkman gestured him to stop
Benjamin pulled back the bottle, screwed the cork back on and put the glass down on the floor beside him.
Kirkman could tell hat Benjamin was quite tired, bags under his eyes, his hair was unkempt and messy. He pulled the glass up over his mouth and poured a bit of its contents within.
"So…"Kirkman took a sip from his own glass, letting the numbing sensation pass through is mouth and throat before speaking. "What brings you here?" Kirkman quirked an eyebrow at Benjamin.
"Well, we did some experimentation on the subjects you brought, and let's just say we may have violated a few human rights and treaties in the process, but I assure you, the information we got is worth it"
Kirkman heard the part about violating human rights, but at the same time, he wasn't held back by those treaties as he was on an alien planet.
"Don't worry, we didn't do anything too major, but we definitely did cause some minor injuries to test the extents of this 'Aura' as they call it."
"So what did you find?"
"We confirmed what the marines got from them in the interrogation, we broke down their aura and caused minor injuries, a few cuts here, a few punches there, and all the bruises and cuts seemed to heal as the aura 'regenerated'." He said the last part with air quotes
"Why the air quotes?"
"Well we aren't sure if their aura actually is regenerating or if it's just a passive ability for individuals with aura, or both, we're just taking their word for it. That said, I still don't believe in all that soul bullshit though."
Kirkman brought the glass close to his mouth. "Heh, believe me, I'm skeptical about it too." He took a drink.
Benjamin downed the rest of the contents of his glass, a visible lump went down his throat as he breathed a heavy sigh, the smell of alcohol clearly in his breath.
"But we are in an alien planet, so anything is possible, discounting of course differences in the laws of physics, biology, chemistry and basically any other scientific law. Cause if we see anything in this world that violates any of those, then we may be in more than just an alien planet."
Kirkman knew exactly what Benjamin was implying.
"What else did you find?" Kirkman himself finished what left of his bourbon.
"Aura is susceptible to electricity, all forms of radiation, heat, and heavy amounts of kinetic energy, of course this isn't to say that it doesn't protect from them, it's just less effective against them. Oh and Aura protects from damage, but not pain."
"I don't want to ask how you found that out, but if you didn't do anything too major, how were you able to determine that aura is susceptible to radiation?"
"I'm sure you know that gamma and x-ray aren't the only forms of radiation, we subjected them to light amounts of infrared, microwave and ultraviolet radiation, which all burned through there aura pretty quick and caused first degree burns."
"I see."
"We still have yet to try stronger forms of radiation and high powered lasers on them, but we don't want to risk killing the only specimens we have."
Benjamin poured himself another glass of the rich amber liquid as Kirkman thought on what he would do now with these new pieces of information, high kinetic energy meant bullets, tank shells, and your average ordnance would be enough to take people with auras down, but they already found that out with the two engagements his men had with the humans of Remnant.
"Though, apart from the obvious built in forcefields which these people say come from their souls, the similarities between us and the humans of this world are remarkable, obviously not including the fact that the ones we have are faunus. Everything is practically the same, which makes me think that there are two more possible explanations apart from this just being a different planet that somehow had multi celled organisms evolve into primitive primates and from there to Homo sapiens with forcefields."
"Since you implied it earlier, I assume parallel universe is one of them, but what would be the other one?"
"That the conspiracy theorists are right and that humans and evolution as we know it is wrong, and humanity originally came from another planet, but I absolutely refuse to believe that, I'd pray to some god before I buy into that crap." He took a drink.
Benjamin offered Kirkman the bottle, ready to pour him another one, but Kirkman waved his hand in refusal.
"Well, we have all time in the world to speculate about these 'humans', but I think right now, we have to focus on what's right in front of us, and that's the fact that we're still in an unknown world with aliens with unknown intent."
"Indeed."
A knock was then heard on the door.
"Come in." Kirkman told the mystery knocker.
The door opened and a man of around the same height a Benjamin walked in, he was young, had medium length hair and brown eyes, he was in incomplete uniform, with a black t-shirt and proper uniform pants, in his hand he held a thick envelope.
He was Frank George Miller or George for short, the man leading the cyber team sent by Cyber Command. They must finally have news.
"Sir, we have made multiple developments on the things you ordered us to find."
George handed him the envelope, Kirkman opened up and pulled out the contents, it was a full booklet with many pages.
"That's a lot."
"We're very thorough sir."
Benjamin looked at George with eyes that suggested some sort of familiarity. "Oh, it's you."
George looked at Benjamin he seemed to remember him too. "Oh yeah, I know you! Benjamin Steele right?"
"I prefer to be called Ben, but sure that works."
"You two know each other? Kirkman said as he opened the book and began sifting through its contents.
"Yeah, George here was part of the cyber team making sure we weren't gonna get hacked when we were developing the particle cannon in a secret research lab back in 08'. "
"Seems you haven't changed a bit, always drinking on the job." George laughed
"Hey, it helps get my creativity runnin' That, and I like it."
George chuckled, "Tell me, how old are you again?"
"What? I'm 38."
"And you look like you're in your late 40s. Lay off on the whiskey and maybe you'll look your age"
"Oh fuck off."
Safe to say Benjamin was completely unamused.
Kirkman seemed to finish sifting through the pages.
"I'll fully read it later, but based on what I'm seeing, what you've found is remarkable, based on just this, I can confidently say that we can beat them in small scale conflicts, and even large scale if my requests for a massive expansion of armaments and men are accepted. But the part about people disliking us is still not very good."
"Disliking us?" Benjamin asked.
"From what we found, they're not very keen on killing other people." George explained
"What are they? Hippies?"
"No clue, all I know is they believe it should've been avoided at all costs."
"Well that's fuckin' stupid." Benjamin took another drink.
Kirkman decided to speak up. "I think it has something to do with the fact that they have these aura forcefields, maybe they only have to go as far as to incapacitate each other because their weapons don't have the same level of lethality as ours."
George looked at Kirkman with confused eyes. "Don't have the same level of lethality? Well, I wouldn't say that, didn't you see the mech, it looks pretty lethal if you ask me."
"Well looks can be deceiving because-"
"Mech? Can I see that?" Benjamin put his drink down and looked at Kirkman.
Kirkman handed him the booklet and Benjamin started turning pages.
George turned to Benjamin. "It's on page 32. It's called the Atlesian Paladin, boy did we have to dig through a bunch of classified files to get that."
Benjamin turned to the said page and viewed its contents, after just a few seconds of reading it, he began to laugh "Heh heh, the fuck is this?"
"What do you mean? Are you blind or something? Do you see how deadly that thing looks?"
"Well I'm not exactly an engineer, but being an experimental physicist I think I can spot the errors, first of all, carbon steel and titanium?"
"What? Aren't those strong?"
Kirkman answered. "They are, but they aren't very good for armor, Hollywood will make you believe that titanium is a wonder metal, but military grade steel will leave it in the dust. But even with carbon steel, you won't even need HEAT rounds to take this out, all you would need is a couple well placed HE shots and this thing is gone."
"Not to mention those exposed joints, like the General said, even just a couple HE shots on the joints on the arms and legs will leave it limbless, or hit it on the torso and it's decapitated."
Benjamin continued to read, something caught his eye and he started to laugh again
"What now?" George asked, clearly disappointed at the turn of events.
"The rockets, heh heh… and the fucking laser motion sensor."
"What? Don't those make it more versatile and deadly?"
"Oh sure they would, if they weren't so ineffective."
"Ineffective?"
The General spoke again. "The missiles use fire dust, which after testing, the scientists have determined has the same explosive power as amatol, but I'm not sure about the problems with the motion sensor."
"Amatol which is basically TNT and ammonium nitrate mixed together hasn't been in widespread use on Earth since World War Two, it's obsolete. As for the laser motion sensor, it relies on the light not being bounced back to the sensor, so if you can move quick enough, you'll dupe it real easy. Honestly it would work better as a targeting system for the missiles." He pulled out a cigarette, and placed it in his mouth. "And please, call me Ben." He lit it and took a quick puff
"It also says the effective range is 50 meters for the gun and 100 for the missiles. Even the obsolete Abrams tank can fire a depleted uranium armour piercing dart that would shatter this thing from a mile away, Imagine what a Paladin would do." Kirkman added.
George looked over Benjamin's shoulder to view the contents of the envelope. "Okay sure, but it says here that it was built to fight infantry and grimm, not other armored units. How would it do against infantry and levia- grimm then?"
"Huh, is this… Atlas the only country with a capable military?"
"What makes you say that, General?" Benjamin asked.
"If you look at the fact that it uses missiles and kinetic energy guns, it would make sense for it to be made to fight other armored units."
"The General is right though." George answered. "We found nothing else suggesting that the other kingdoms also have mechs."
"But to answer your question, Miller, no, an FGM-148 Javelin can very well take this thing out with an effective range of 4,000 meters."
George opened his mouth but Kirkman stopped him. "And if they were in close range, then an AT-4 would do just as good a job.
George sighed. "Tch, well there goes my hopes for cool tank versus robot battles. Well sir, I'll be going now, I'll be updating you if we find anything."
He gave him a salute and left.
Benjamin was still turning pages on the booklet, trying to find something interesting, then he did.
"Ho ho, General, you saw this? The 'Atlesian Knight-200'"
"No, I must have skipped over it." Ben handed over the booklet to Kirkman
Kirkman viewed the page, it was a blueprint of a humanoid robot, there were two images, one wherein the robot was holding a rifle similar to the ones being held by the White Fang soldiers, and the other picture showing the robot with two swords for hands.
"Made of a titanium alloy, torso's more exposed than my Aunt Jen's ass on Thanksgiving."
Kirkman held back a chuckle as he looked at the blueprint.
Benjamin blew smoke in the air and finished the last of his drink.
"Anyway, I'll be going now, chemists have probably already fucked up with the dust samples."
Ben picked up his bottle and the two glasses before walking out the door.
Then Kirkman was left their, alone, wondering what this all entailed for him and his men.
He picked up the booklet, and decided to properly read it.
It took around an hour, he was a fast reader, so finishing a forty page report in that amount of time in one sitting was hardly a challenge.
But the contents of the paper were very interesting. The cyber team were able to find much.
The information within would indeed be very useful for the future.
To him though, the most interesting part of the report was the part about the Atlas military, which was apparently the only proper military force in all of Remnant. The report held pictures of the strategy manual of Atlas, and it was straight up Napoleonic.
The soldiers and androids were meant to fire in straight lines good ole 1860's style. There were no maneuvers for getting into position, long range, short range, no matter the situation, the strategy was the same, just open fire. Sure there were a few basic flanking maneuvers, but they were that, basic, there was no concept of suppressing fire, no shock and awe doctrine even though they were by far the most advanced military.
Most of all, even though they were the largest military on remnant, they only had 44,000 soldiers; 32,000 being androids which were already concluded to be weak.
The Atlesian military also had a fleet of more than a thousand aircraft, made up mostly of big, clunky and slow airships, smaller craft made for CAS, and dropships.
Any fighter jet in the American arsenal could take them out very easily.
So again, Kirkman was left wondering what all this meant for the mission and his men.
"Sir! We just received a radio communication!"
And with that, his wondering was ruined
An hour earlier
"Our only option is clearly to fight back against them!" One voice spoke.
"Why fight? Their only act of aggression so far has been against blood thirsty faunus terrorists!" A second one came
"As a Faunus, I find that incredibly offens-" The third voice was cut off
"Oh shut up!" The second voice bit back
Ozpin turned off the hologram, he was getting tired of listening to the reactions of the public anyway.
He sighed. The past few days had been a complete disaster. The fact that someone claiming to be from a sovereign nation claimed to be the one who had attacked the White Fang base was already big enough, but then the evidence they sent them from a signal that was still being tracked, was damning.
All the doubts he and anyone of authority had about this man and his claims being fabrications were cleared by the evidence.
He must have watched those videos at least a hundred times already
There were two videos.
The first was taken from the head camera of a man, there was no audio, either that or it had been taken out in post-production. It started with the camera man and three other men rushing into a wall with hole blown through it, then them entering and mercilessly gunning down dozens of men and women. The video made a jump cut to then showing the camera man shooting White Fang coming out of a warehouse with more fire coming from behind him.
It struck something in Ozpin's heart, the bloodshed was too much.
The video was already enough to prove the validity of 'General Thomas Kirkman's' claims, as you could clearly identify the compound from the video.
He didn't care if they were terrorists, nothing justified taking another life.
He had done so in his past, but not a day went by that he didn't regret them.
What made it worse though was the bullhead video or Comanche as their mysterious hijacker called it. The video was in black and white, and it showed that the object filming was high in the air before suddenly descending in front of the second floor of a building with windows, there were lots of white human looking blobs, it was some sort of thermal camera, a luxury that only the Atlesian military could afford.
Then the guns and rockets fired and then suddenly all the heat signatures just disappeared.
It terrified Ozpin to no end that such things, such machines that made killing so easy existed. He wasn't fearful for his own life no, he was fearful for humanity, those two videos and the fact that the base was turned into dust by a bombing that Ozpin assumed there were no videos of, showed the extent these people would go to kill, and how they seemed to have perfected the act of killing.
The sheer firepower.
It was terrifying.
Yet, there were still many question that clouded his mind.
Who are they? Why have they only reveal themselves now? And of course, where did they get such weapons of destruction?
What was more interesting was that the videos were sent directly to the CCT's classified communications floor, the only people who would have clearance to send things directly to this floor are members of the council of the four kingdoms, headmasters and others with incredible high clearance.
So not only was this a breach of morality, but it was also a breach of security.
The term nation also has never been used since before the Great War, as all the nations fell before the Great War started. Could this 'United States of America' possibly be a nation from before the Great War?
That was when the elevator doors to his office opened, and out of it came Glynda Goodwitch and General James Ironwood, they had just met a few days prior, Ironwood was supposed to deal with security preparations for the Vytal festival.
But current events changed those plans.
"Hello James, Glynda." Ozpin stood up
James walked up to Ozpin, with Glynda by his sided "It has not been long since our last meeting, I assume you called me here because of the still developing situation about the White Fang base attack."
"And the ensuing news hijacking" Glynda clarified
"Yes." Ozpin started to walk back to his desk, taking a seat, he continued to speak while the other two walked up to the table.
"Though I am certain Atlas had nothing to do with any of this, I want to hear it straight from you, James. Did Atlas have anything to do with this?" Ozpin asked with furrowed eyebrows, he took a sip from his coffee and brought his focus back on Ironwood
Glynda also looked at Ironwood, waiting for an answer and he did.
"Atlas had nothing to do with both the attack on the White Fang base and the news broadcast hijacking" He said with a completely straight face.
Ozpin with his literally millennia of experience of telling whether or not people were lying could tell that Ironwood wasn't. His eyes eased up.
"Now, onto business. Glynda, what news do you have of the situation?" He looked at Glynda who was holding a large scroll tablet, she tapped on it for a few second before placing it on Ozpin's desk, a hologram projected from the desk showing random numbers and sentences.
"Ironwood's team was able to determine the frequency used to send us the videos, but they have failed to determine the location of the broadcast or where the videos were sent." Glynda zoomed in on a specific set of numbers which looked to be some sort of radio frequency.
"But, even with just the frequency, we can already do many things." Ironwood added.
Ozpin leaned back on his chair. "What are our options?"
Glynda pulled her tablet back.
"We can be cautious and wait for Ironwood's team to determine the exact location-"
"But this may take a while, I am confident in my team's ability but it seems that this Kirkman and his nation are good at masking their location."
Glynda shot a quick glare at Ironwood for interrupting her. "As I was saying, our other option is to communicate with them using this frequency."
Ozpin mulled over it.
"I think we should communicate with them, it's important we got our agendas straight now" Ironwood suggested.
"I think that's its safer we get their location first, if we communicate now, we risk talks breaking down and having them attack us."
"And if they do, they will face the full power of Atlas."
"It's not all about war, James." Glynda raised her voice
"It will be if they attack us first."
"Which is exactly what we are trying to avoid."
"Well it will be unavoidable if-"
"That's enough!" Ozpin raised his own voice. He took a deep breath and let it out. "I believe we must communicate with them."
Ironwood smiled while Goodwitch frowned a little.
"General, meet up with your team, tell them that I will be there soon."
The general left the room and went inside the elevator. The doors closed and with a pleasant ding, it could be heard descending.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Glynda took a few steps until she was standing beside Ozpin.
"Well, there's not exactly protocol for a nation attacking a criminal organization and announcing themselves to the world. So we're all just making assumptions, and I assume this is a good idea."
Ozpin took a sip from his mug.
"What of the students?" Glynda asked.
"What about them."
"Should we broadcast this talk throughout Beacon?"
"I don't think we should, we can certainly report about it in the news, but broadcasting the entire talk would mean that if it were to fail, everyone in Beacon, nay, the world will see it all fall, imagine the negative emotions that would spread through just that."
Glynda nodded in agreement
One hour later.
Ozpin stepped through the recently opened elevator doors and quickly walked to the large monitor Ironwood and a few other men and women were standing in front of, Glynda walked beside him with the large tablet scroll held closely to her chest.
"James."
Ironwood turned around and met the eyes of Ozpin.
"I already sent them a radio message asking for them to open up their communications to allow for proper video."
Ozpin stepped forward and stood beside Ironwood, looking at the giant holographic monitor. "Did they accept?"
"Yes they did."
"Who will be speaking?" Ozpin asked.
"Well, actually, I thought you would be fit for the job, considering you hold a seat in the Council of Vale and your negotiations skills are impeccable."
Ozpin lightly laughed "Very well then."
"We'll start whenever you're ready, Oz."
Ozpin cleared his throat, and put down his coffee mug, he adjusted his eye glasses. "I don't think I need any more preparation, you can start it now."
"Very well." Ironwood pressed a button, and with that the Vale insignia on the hologram was replaced by Static.
"What's going on?" Glynda suddenly stepped forward.
"Wait for it." Ironwood put a hand up.
The static disappeared and in its place was the man himself. The same man who hijacked the VNN news broadcast, and the same man who claimed and showed proof that he attacked the White Fang compound.
The chatter in the entire room stopped, Glynda looked wide eyed at the screen, while Ironwood simply stared on with a stern face.
He was in a room, much like the one Ozpin was in now, a room filled with men and women on computers, but Kirkman was there, in the same uniform he was in yesterday.
"I assume that you are General Thomas Kirkman."
Kirkman, with a stoic face, answered Ozpin. "You would be correct. Let's skip the formalities shall we, to what do I owe this… call to?"
"I simply want to ask a few questions." Ozpin answered honestly
The man on the screen simply stared for a few seconds before finally coming to an answer.
"As expected, I am sure you and your people have questions regarding not only the attack but myself as well. I will answer all that I can."
'Can.' Ozpin knew exactly what that word meant; Kirkman would be holding back information, and will likely refuse to answer some.
"Then let us begin."
Glynda unfolded her scroll and set it to stand in front of Ozpin, they were a list of questions that they had written out which were supposed to be asked by whoever was speaking, but since Ozpin was speaking, he pushed the scroll back to Goodwitch as he had already committed them to memory.
"Who are you?"
"I believe I already answered that, I am General Thomas Kirkman of the United States of America." Ozpin could tell that Kirkman knew exactly what he meant by that question, he could see it in his eyes. Even Glynda and Ironwood who were watching alongside him could tell.
"I don't mean surface level information, I want to know who exactly you are, what is this 'United States of America.'"
"Alright then, The United States of America, the United States, or the US for short is a nation founded by the inhabitants of multiple villages and towns from all over Remnant. It was founded shortly after the Great War, and we have remained isolated until now."
This came as a big surprise to everyone in the room, the chatter came back, but Ironwood quickly gestured them all to stay silent, though he was shocked himself.
Still, the three of them were skeptical, how could 'multiple villages and towns' suddenly migrate and combine into one new nation completely undetected?
"Where is the United States of America?"
Kirkman seemed to hesitate for a second. "Northeast of Vale, though we will not tolerate anyone doing any amount of reconnaissance near us."
"That's a tall order." Ironwood whispered.
Though Northeast of Vale made sense, the White Fang base was there, and there were multiple patches of land there that have remained uncharted since the end of the Great War. But for the activity of a nation that seemed to be powerful to be completely undetected for 80 years was unheard of. He could understand the want for no reconnaissance as maybe he still wants some amount of isolation.
"What did you do to the two White Fang agents you had captured?"
"I'm sorry, but I don't think I can answer that question."
"Very well." He knew it.
Now for the really important question.
"What is your intent?"
"Intent?" He raised an eyebrow.
"Do you intend to establish a new kingdom, defeat the White Fang or perhaps you intend to cause death and destruction?"
Kirkman sighed.
"I believe that if you look to the northern window on your current floor in the CCT you will see the Emerald Forest in the horizon beyond the first year dorms, correct?"
Everyone in the room turned.
How did he know where they were, this was a highly classified floor within the CCT. Nonetheless, everyone was looking at the window, Glynda, Ironwood and Ozpin all walked to it, they stared upon the green Emerald Forest.
A muffled "Call it in." Could be heard from Kirkman.
Suddenly a thunderous sound echoed throughout, the glass window vibrated, and their eyes looked above them, to see a bird flying high above the sky, it was of strange shape, it was grey, and had long thin wings. It flew at incredible speeds. It was flying so high that it indeed did just look like the size of a bird, suddenly it released eight bright lights which started to quickly descend upon the forest.
"What is that?!" Glynda shouted.
Less than a second later the bird disappeared, and with it, the thunderous sound.
As the eight lights came closer and closer to the ground, the dispersed into many smaller bright lights, there must have been nearly around forty of them. They all crashed onto the dense forest, causing explosions that could be heard even through the thick windows and walls of the CCT.
Bright lights lit up all throughout the forest, which were then followed by smoke and flames. All the trees within the area affected were in a complete cloud of white smoke and flames.
The forest was miles away, yet the explosion, flames and smoke could be very clearly seen and heard.
The room went quiet, everyone was in complete disbelief at the total destruction the single attack had caused. The area of effect was large, the blaze stretched for about half a kilometer in all directions.
"How?" She whispered. Glynda stood there in shock. Her eyes widened and her forehead with a few droplets of sweat forming on it.
Ironwood had never seen such a display of military power just from a single attack from an aircraft, not even Atlas had something like this.
Ozpin himself was equally surprised. Nothing in remnant even came close to that level of speed and power.
Granted it wasn't just the destruction that terrified them, drop enough fire dust bombs on a target and you could cause this much destruction too. The But the fact that the aircraft came and left without giving them any time to react and how it only took a few bright lights, was the worst part of all.
How could someone even defend from something like that?
Kirkman then spoke.
"Believe me when I say that we can cause death and destruction, I simply choose not to. As war is not in our best interest."
Everyone was too stunned to respond, except for Ozpin.
He turned around, and with a stern voice, he spoke. "Is that a threat?"
"As I stated, we do not want war, we want peace. We just want you to promise that you will not antagonize us."
Ozpin started walking back to the monitor
"You say that, yet your only actions thus far are ones that caused death and destruction."
Kirkman looked up as if in thought, then his eyes went back to Ozpin.
"Then how about an act of peace for once?"
Ozpin was surprised by this, he wasn't expecting that.
"What do you have in mind?"
"Tell the people of Vale to tune in to 107.1 FM later at 7pm. Thank you." Then the screen went to black.
Leaving Ozpin and everyone else who was still looking at the blazing forest stunned.
He sent a few drones with thermal camera there just to make sure he wouldn't be demonstrating on an area with people in it.
The demonstration worked perfectly, Kirkman was really holding back a smile when he saw the utter disbelief in the faces of those watching after the demonstration of the white phosphorus airburst bomb.
Their surprise and disbelief suggest that Remnant really does have nothing like that, and that was very good for the Operation Forging Steel, strategically speaking
But he did make a promise of peace.
Kirkman turned to Colonel Burton.
"I need you to tell the cyber to start setting up a radio broadcast at 107.1 FM, it needs to be up by 1900 hours."
Burton nodded but he still looked rather confused. "If I may ask, sir, what is this for?"
"A radio show."
"A radio show?" The colonel looked even more confused.
Kirkman was dead serious.
"We've done this before, in Germany, Vietnam, Iraq, we usually do it to spread anti-whoever-we're-fighting propaganda. I think that if we host a peaceful radio show, we can convince the world of Remnant that our interests extend to more than just war and fury."
The look of confusion disappeared from the colonel's face. "That's actually a smart idea sir, I'll get the cyber team to it."
He saluted and walked away.
Now that that was done, Kirkman needed to find one man, who would be integral in this plan.
He also hastily walked out the doors of the strategy center. He went past marines doing some sort of drill, before reaching his destination, the designated research lab of FOB Juno.
The metal, doors automatically opened, he walked through a corridor, people in lab coats sped past him. He took a left turn, he stopped after seeing a wooden door, he put his hand on the knob and twisted it, he walked inside only to find the office empty.
He went back out and closed the door, seeing a woman in a lab coat walk past him, he spoke.
"Excuse me!"
The woman turned around, she had a few bandages on her face, it was then that Kirkman remembered Ben's story about the woman who sneezed on some dust and got wounded.
He was able to control his surprise though.
"Do you know where Benjamin Steele is?"
The woman pointed her hand in front of her.
"Just straight ahead, general. Take a right turn, he's in laboratory 2A1, testing high powered lasers on dust."
"Thank you." He nodded his head and walked further into the hallway.
And just like the instructions given to him, he took a left turn, walking a bit further into the hallway he saw another wooden door, next to it a plaque saying '2A1'
He opened it and went in, there he saw Ben with safety goggles on, his hands were on top of some sort of large metal apparatus, in front of it was a metal plate on a stand with red specks on it.
Ben turned around at the sound of the door, and he looked rather surprised to Kirkman so soon after meeting him.
"General. Came for a drink?"
"I'll pass. I came to see you for another matter." Kirkman closed the door behind him.
"What is it?"
Ben took his hands off the device and stood straight
"You used to host a radio program about physics in the mid-2000s right?"
"Yeah, started around 06', did it with a buddy, lasted for a year then the Department of Defense brought me in to start developing the particle uplink cannon. Got a decent amount viewers, why are you askin'?"
"Well, I have a plan, need to get the people off Remnant to stop thinking that we're just a bunch blood thirsty sickos."
"Mm. Let me guess, you're starting a radio show and want me to host it?"
"Precisely." Kirkman was glad that he got the point quickly.
"Alright, when do ya need me?" Ben went back to work, and flicked a switch on the metal apparatus, a red laser beam shot forward, and hit the red specks in the middle, causing miniature explosion.
"I need you at the command center by 6:30. Still have some planning to do."
"Alright, I'll be there." Ben walked over to the remains of the metal plate
Kirkman walked out of the room to let Benjamin continue his work, now he just needed to do some planning.
Six hours later.
Everything was set, all the high ranking officers were observing from behind a wall with window on it. Benjamin was sitting behind a table, a microphone in front of him and a half empty glass of whiskey to his right. George was on his left giving him a rundown of what he was supposed do.
The radio show was going to play every morning on weekdays, but today was special case, since it would be the first time.
It was going to have a thirty minute talking segment with Benjamin and whoever his cohost would be. But they wouldn't have any of that for today. Today, it was just going to be introductions and playing of some songs from Earth.
George seemed to finish up, he left the room, he sat down on the seat next to Kirkman, he put on a headset with a microphone attached, he tapped on a button on the right speaker.
"Ben, you ready?"
Benjamin gave a thumbs up.
"Alright, we're going live in five… four… three… two… one."
George pressed a green button on the table in front of him.
"Why are we using my scroll for this?" Weiss asked with an annoyed voice.
"Because your fancy scroll is the only one that can connect to the radio." Yang grabbed Weiss's scroll from her desk, and tapped around on it until she opened the radio app.
Weiss crossed her arms with a grunt but begrudgingly walked up to Yang as she prepared it.
"What was the frequency that Ozpin said again?"
Blake and Ruby both watched Yang prepare the radio broadcast.
"107.1 FM"
Yang tapped around a bit again. "There. Now we just gotta wait for 7:00."
The time on the scroll said '6:58'. So it was close.
"I wonder what these murderers have to say for themselves now." Blake rolled her eyes.
"Probably another 'justification' for their savage killings." Weiss scoffed.
"Do you think they had something to do with the big forest explosion?" Ruby innocently asked.
Weiss shook her head. "No. General Ironwood already clarified that a software malfunction caused a large group of cargo airships to drop their shipment of fire dust."
"But I didn't see any cargo ships, and I was in the courtyard talking with Jaune that time."
"Maybe you just weren't paying attention."
"But-"
The scroll in on the desk suddenly made static sounds
"It's happening." Yang said, everyone quieted down.
"Gzhhzzzzk"
"Good Morning Vale! Is it evening? Ah, Good Evening then I guess."
A low gravelly voice spoke. It sounded like someone unenthusiastic trying to sound enthusiastic.
"Hey, he kinda sounds like uncle Qrow!" Ruby pointed out
Yang could indeed hear the slight resemblance.
"How could he mess that up?" Weiss said with a condescending tone.
"This is 107.1 America Radio. I'm your host…." There was a sigh. "Rusty Steele."
"They're doing a show? What the heck?" Ruby asked.
"Really?! After killing multiple people just a few days ago, they go and do this?!" Blake yelled.
"This is unbelievable."
Yang stood quiet waiting to see where it goes.
"Let me go off script for a second. I know our nation and your kingdom haven't exactly gone through the best start."
"You think?!" Weiss and Blake shouted with sarcastic undertone.
Yang made a slight grimace at them "Come on you two, just listen."
"But I promise you that we here in the United States have interests past fighting, and I hope that this program shows that. So without further ado, I present to you, A Day In The Life."
"What is A Day In The Life?" Ruby turned to her sister
She shrugged "I don't know, some kind of comedy skit?"
"I bet it's some sort of propaganda against the White Fang." Blake rolled her eyes for the billionth time that day.
"Maybe another 'justification' for their killi-"
A soft guitar rhythm suddenly played.
Everyone was confused.
"A song?" Weiss questioned.
The guitar continued for five seconds, then a piano joined the rhythm.
Weiss raised an eye "Acoustic guitar and piano is a strange combination."
"Eh, maybe that's just in Atlas, here in Vale you here it a bunch in folk songs." Yang who loved music knew much about the popular music in Vale.
The descending tone of a bass guitar came and with it the sounds of maracas came
Even Yang was stoked by this "Now that's a weird combination."
"I read the news today ~oh boy."
In the distance, within an unknown concrete building . Adam Taurus sharpens his blade with a sharpening steel, going through the motion back and forth over and over again, he was listening to the broadcast too.
"About a lucky man who made the grade."
He pushed the steel forward, making a metallic ringing sound as he did, he did it on the other side.
"And though the news was rather sad-"
The thoughts of relieving that bastard Kirkman of his head passing through his mind.
"Well, I just had to laugh and~ I saw the photograph aaand~"
The motions went faster and faster, as all his anger built up the more he thought of him. The base lost. Sienna won't be happy. He had plans for her anyway, but this was still a massive hindrance to his cause.
"He blew his mind out in a-" He sliced the scroll in half.
He stood up and looked down at the dead body of the police man he had killed minutes earlier. He jeered and walked away.
A Day In The Life is not owned by me, it was made by the Beatles and is property of UMG.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh this chapter was both a pain and a joy to write, this is the longest chapter yet after all. This chapter I wanted to focus more on the social aspect of things rather than action, so I hope you liked it even though there was a severe lack of action. But yeah, the plot is escalating and soon there will be more action.
I also feel that I have to explain myself whenever there is a big technological disparity between Earth and Remnant so it doesn't look like I'm just pulling shit out of my ass. Well I do, but not most of the time- anyway.
The bullets being slower thing is in line with calculations done by some people, but those calculations are usually pretty bullshit, so we're gonna use visual examples. 1. Mercury's legs only 'broke' after Yang's shotgun amplified punch, if that was a real world shotgun that would fuck up his leg real bad, prosthetic or not. 2. In volume 5, White Fang guns couldn't even break ceramic bowls from medium range. Im actually being real generous by making the bullets subsonic, because holy hell, it would have to be veeeeeeeery unrealistically slow for it to not be able to break a ceramic fucking bowl.
As for the Paladins being weak as shit, RWBY fuckin destroyed one without any Anti-Armor weapons. Even before Yang's building breaking punch, they were doing a considerable amount of damage to it with just some bladed weapons, and were duping the motion sensor real easy. Now for the weak guns and missiles, well they were just breaking thin amount of concrete, and that's them launching multiple missiles and shots all at once.
I think the slow moving aircraft is self-explanatory, and I mean just look at them, and from what we've seen the Atlas pilots still need to get a visual/get something on radar for it to attack, while us over here on earth have been using BVR missiles for half a century.
Now reviews (Which I got a lot of, thank you so much 3)
Monster King: Again, thanks
Blazblade: Yeah, some stuff that's still in the making by the US will definitely appear here.
Masterix: Oh they will see very, very soon.
quma25: Thank you, I was going for explosive(literally) lol. Yeah I noticed killing is a very heavy thing on Remnant which was why I put emphasis on it this and last chapter.
Bruhmeister935: You all make this thing very worth it to write.
Warmachine324: You will see more soon.
Yermakgundyr: Goddamn that's a hard name to type, thanks, and I hope I continue to write well.
Konstantinsen: Go ahead, it's a great game. Ye I threw in a bit of Ozpin, Ironwood and Glynda here, but don't worry there's gonna be more of them later on.
Nyetman123: Glad to hear! I actually was planning to add the actual voice lines but I couldn't find a good place to put em just yet, but don't worry they will be in here soon. *FUCKIN SICK GUITAR PLAYS*
Guest: Well this is Blake pre Adam causes some bullshit in the WF, so she is a pretty huge brat when it comes to faunus shit atm.
Guest: The GLA was eliminated, but I do still have some plans involving them.
VGBlackwing: Yeah, again, Blake is a huuuuuuge brat at the moment.