"You want to put out an oil fire, sir? You set off a bigger explosion right next to it. Sucks away the oxygen. Snuffs the flame."
- Captain John Price
"I'm sorry, you're asking me to do what now?"
"I didn't take you for the squeamish type."
Percy could practically feel the indignant offense through the scroll call. "I'm not. This is just… new."
By which he meant a new low. Percy shared the sentiment.
"Whatever's necessary. We took it too far, we're the bad guys. If we want to have any hope of recovering our position then it's Atlas who need to be the aggressors."
"I understand. This just won't go over well, with anyone that learns of it."
"Then make sure nobody learns of it. We're not killing people here, Shiro. It's a new kind of low, but with the stakes as high as they are…"
"I understand that. I'll do it, I'm just… are you sure it'll work?"
Percy paused. Was he?
No. He wasn't sure about much anymore, or at least how it'd turn out. The fact that he'd been sure about his tactics in the past was ill-deserved, and what had gotten him here in the first place. But here and now, he thought about the advice Shiro had given him about the Valean council and Wolke. To emulate what he'd done to the nobility of Mistral. Take the carrots.
But now he realized that the only boon that anyone on this planet truly had was their reputation — the support of the people. It's what he'd taken from the great families that had truly made the difference, and what he'd taken from himself in kneecapping the SDC's Vale operations. It didn't matter that according to the rules they all normally abided by that the SDC no longer had any real influence in Vale. Percy should've been able to take billions in lien, show up with billions more, and successfully monopolize the Vale market without a shred of evidence pointing towards him. But when the cards were down and the people were outraged enough, they were capable of bending those rules.
Despite there not being a modicum of evidence, his dust had been seized and sold to the people of Vale, and the SDC would just have to send over another shipment.
But that, along with a healthy piece of advice from Jacques, had reminded him that the people were failliable. That they could be prone to acting rashly, and to turning their opinions on a dime, just because of a bit of public perception.
And that, he could work with.
"I'm as certain as I can be. And we don't have much to lose if it doesn't work out, so long as we're not caught."
"And what if we are caught?" he asked.
"Just don't get caught." Percy replied in lieu of an answer, clicking his scroll shut.
Shiro's part in all of this was a small but necessary one. The puzzle pieces had to fit together. To light a spark that would ignite the flame.
Unfortunately Atlesian sanctions had already passed and were scheduled to go into effect next week. Atlas had officially petitioned Vale to support them, and it was a matter of days before the Valean council responded with an emphatic yes.
Which meant that he had a matter of days to set off that explosion like Jacques had unconsciously advised.
He'd have liked to frame the SDC and Wolke in a more clinical manner — plant paperwork, forge emails and bills, carefully craft a narrative which would make the SDC a black sheep and put Wolke in jail. But he had a deadline. Which meant that if he wanted anything nearing a good result, he had to pull out some of the aces he'd been keeping up his sleeve.
Percy sighed unhappily. After this, the party would be all but over. Jacques wouldn't know Percy was behind any of this, but if he didn't already then Jacques would have plenty of reason to start suspecting him by the end of the week.
Clearing his head of such thoughts, Percy shot Roman's protege a small smile and turned his attention out the window to the fuel for his explosion.
The settlement of Argus.
"Is your end ready?" Percy asked over the scroll. His voice was steady, and Shiro was reminded for a moment that he wasn't quite human. Never had been.
It certainly helped explain how he could be so calm pulling something like this.
"It is. I just got done briefing the captain on what he needs to know. Where are you?" Shiro asked, glancing up and down the street in front of the Argus police station as if he might see Percy watching him from a distance.
"We shouldn't meet. It'd attract too much attention. Same reason you couldn't come here with your guards or driver."
Shiro sighed. "Yeah, got it. So, when does this thing get rolling?"
"Now that I know the police are ready… two minutes."
The scroll signal cut with a small 'click' and Shiro sighed to himself. He really wished that Percy would break that habit.
Shiro stepped away from the police station and across the street, walking down the sidewalk to get as much distance between him and it as possible in two minutes. He still didn't quite understand the plan — or rather he understood it, he just didn't understand why Percy had decided to go through with such drastic measures.
Okay, that was a lie. He knew why, just… where did that kid come up with such batshit crazy ideas?
Shiro spent the remaining minute in tense silence. People walked around as normal, conducting their business, shopping, grabbing a bite to eat, completely unaware of what would be occurring in mere seconds. And even then, they couldn't know what was really happening. Nobody but a select few could or ever would.
The anxious wait for it to begin lasted for what felt like an hour, but it still began all too soon.
The first sign that something might've been wrong was the sound of the bullheads approaching from the north. The roar of the engines was louder than usual due to the quantity of them, but in a city like Argus which served as a cornerstone of trade between Mistral and the two largest powers on Remnant the sound of bullheads was a familiar one. Most wouldn't think anything was afoot.
The second sign was a bit more noticeable.
Every TV in the city, on the sides of buildings and in shops and restaurants flickered briefly before clearing to reveal an Atlesian officer standing in front of a window overlooking the city. The origin of the broadcast was Argus' CCT relay, it was clear. Shiro didn't recognize the officer, but he knew from what he'd been told that most people here would. If the way most people froze to look at the screens was any indication, this was not a common occurrence.
"Citizens of Argus, I am Colonel Hochstapler, officer in charge of the Atlesian garrison in Argus. As of now, Argus is being officially annexed into the kingdom of Atlas. The settlement is being put into temporary lockdown and under martial law. Please stay inside, and keep all windows and doors shut. Mistral law enforcement will be treated as prisoners of war and treated civilly as dictated by the Vytal conference. This inconvenience will pass shortly as soon as resisting forces have been subdued."
The message looped again, set to do so for the rest of the day. The Colonel's calm baritone echoed over the streets repeatedly.
The people, in comparison, were anything but calm.
Shiro let himself be taken along with the crowd, pushed and corralled in their general direction. Some were angry, some were happy, some looked like they were indifferent. Most were just panicked.
The bullheads he'd heard swept over them, three riding side by side, a relatively small airship following behind them. Missiles were launched from the sides of the bullheads, striking the tops and sides of buildings and walls where Mistral-controlled defenses were installed. In the distance, Shiro could hear more explosions from other missiles. People screamed, and the masses moved faster to… wherever they were going. For most, that was probably home or to their families.
While Mistral had some defenses in Argus considering it was technically their city, most defenses were installed and operated by the Atlesian military to defend from Grimm. The Mistrali police garrison — partly because it had been intentionally weakened beforehand — didn't stand a chance.
Soon enough the bullheads swung back around and began to land, the small airship lumbering behind it. One landed at an intersection a few hundred feet in front of Shiro, while he could see the other two landing where he'd been just a few minutes ago, in front of the police station.
The bullhead doors slid open to reveal half a dozen Atlesian soldiers each, all of which climbed out. Those in front of the police station began setting up behind cover and pointing their guns at the exits and windows, waiting for any sign of movement. The soldiers from the bullhead at the intersection similarly set up overlooking the roads in every direction.
Panicked citizens climbed out of their cars and ran for their lives in the opposite direction. Atlas' military let them go without issue, ordering those who tried to stay behind to leave. All three squads, despite having been deployed, just… stood there.
Soon enough it was apparent what they'd been waiting for. The airship, still enormous despite it being a small model, sat down where the bullhead had vacated in the middle of the large intersection. Even despite the large open space it barely fit, the extremities of the ship breaking traffic lights and destroying the edges of buildings, even crushing some unoccupied cars like tin cans.
The back doors to the airship opened as soon as it was stationary, revealing the contents of its insides.
Said contents were something that Shiro had become very familiar with over the last few years. They'd yet to be actually used outside of some basic — if extensive — security for the SDC, but that had changed today. Their most recent models were just a bit worse performance-wise than a trained soldier, but they made up for what they lacked in quality with quantity.
Dozens of autonomous drones stood ready to deploy from the back of the airship, and within seconds they did. Marching in unison they disembarked from the large storage space, all turning sharply right and making their way down the road towards the headquarters of Argus police.
The demands from the Atlesian military suddenly shifted.
The airship rose back into the air and instead of warning the police to stay inside the building, Atlas was now ordering them to exit the building disarmed, with their hands on their head.
Shiro resisted the movement of the crowds just long enough to see the doors open, and watch the first officer come out. At gunpoint, he was arrested by the Atlas military and taken into custody.
War had just been declared.
Percy let a small smile stretch over his face as he perused the news on his phone the next morning.
Everyone knew that the SDC and the White Fang despised each other, and through that they knew that Atlas and Mistral weren't on the best of terms. Political debates were had on which held the moral high ground — to which the dominant opinion in Vale was generally Atlas — but neither had truly caused Vale to do anything more than sneer down at the conflict.
But the White Fang had gone a step too far. They'd crossed a line. Percy, unknowingly, had more or less framed the White Fang for conducting operations against the SDC on Valean soil, and Mistral's reputation had been tarnished as a result.
But then Atlas had crossed a line too, hadn't they? While Mistral had supported the White Fang who had stolen from the SDC on Valean soil, Atlas had ordered an invasion of Argus. They sent an order through the CCT that they operated, wiped any traces of it having been sent, and per orders shut the tower down for 48 hours. Then they began the occupation of the city, the destruction of the Mistrali-operated defenses, and the arresting of the entirety of the police department. War hadn't been officially declared but it would be clear to all that that's what had happened. The CCT wasn't set to turn back on for another day or so, but Percy imagined that a contingent of Atlesian Military would be arriving in Argus to arrest the colonel soon. It would be confusing when he claimed that General Ironwood had ordered him to, but with no CCT record and him having shut the CCT down afterwards, he wasn't likely to come out the other end of the court martial intact. Neither, however, was Atlas. They'd have their scapegoat to blame the incident on, but by then — by now, even — it had already happened. Atlas had started the first war on Remnant in generations. And Mistral were the victims.
There was a quick knock at the door, and Shiro let himself in a moment later with two mugs of coffee.
"You look pleased with yourself." Shiro commented, setting one down in front of Percy and taking the other for himself, reclining into the couch opposite Percy. "Read the news?"
Percy nodded. "Just started. It's exactly what happened with the dust robbery — worse, really — but pointed in the other direction. It's everything I hoped it'd be."
"Well the explosions and minimal footage because of the city being cut off helped. Most people probably don't know the turrets are automated, or that there was no fighting with the police. I've seen estimated casualties in the hundreds. A shame Ironwood didn't order the colonel to shut the CCT off before the invasion began."
Percy shot him a quick grin, "A shame indeed. And since the CCT is down, it's impossible for people to know otherwise until it's all already over, and we can claim Atlas is censoring it."
Shiro shrugged. "Well, it worked. What now? It'll delay the sanctions a bit — Vale can't agree to them now and it'd even make Atlas look pretty bad, sure, but all this has done is buy us… what? A couple months? A year tops until Atlas gets uppity again?"
"If it buys us a year, I'll take a year." Percy sipped the coffee, grimacing slightly at the bitter taste. He'd have to ask for a little cream next time. "But now we press the advantage. We have loan companies, it's time to make real banks. The international whatever-it-is has denied our applications for months, but now we can make it a huge spectacle. Claim that denying us means we'll be unstable in the case of another war, and it's necessary for our independence. That'll save us from having to make our own currency to have a real bank, and that's one thing we can do right now. We've been denied inroads to the big boy's club for a long time, it's time to start using this to get in."
"What about Argus itself?" Shiro pointed out. "I've told our men to remain alert but stationary for now, but we need some show of strength. To show Atlas that we're large enough to stand up for ourselves. If it came to blows with Atlas we'd lose, sure, but it would be close."
"That's the last thing we want to do" Percy refuted, "Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak." he quoted, though he realized a moment later that Shiro wouldn't get the reference. "If we show that we're big and strong and able to respond, our people will be a bit happier but the international community will see us as much less of a peaceful country — albeit a peaceful country with questionable politics — being bullied and much more a nation which has been preparing for war, who they won't underestimate in the future.
"We can make a halfhearted defense. We know this won't escalate, so just send a token force north and centralize a good amount here. Reinforce our settlements up there and start setting up defenses here. We can't be seen as having been prepared for this, even remotely."
Shiro nodded slowly, "Alright, fair enough. I'll make the preparations."
"Speaking of preparing for war," Percy straightened his posture, leaning back into the couch slightly more. "Have our factories start working on those designs I had our engineers work up. It's time we properly defended ourselves. We don't need much — I'd rather keep most of the lien on the civilian side of things and I don't want an actual war, but if there is one I want us to win it. And if our access to advanced computers is limited before we start, it'll handicap our production."
Shiro nodded again, though furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "I know that we had this conversation when you originally told some of our engineers to start looking into making these designs for you, but I still don't really understand the point of… any of them, really. Would it not be better to invest our production into conventional guns and ammo, or armed bullheads, or even some airships? The designs you asked them to make… they don't make much sense."
Percy shrugged. "Pick one."
"Well, the ships for one." Shiro started. "Nobody on Remnant has ships in their military, aside from a few patrol boats. Ships on the scale you've suggested are expensive — incredibly so — and one deep-ocean grimm attack means an entire fleet could disappear in a day. With the money we'd spend on making a ship like you asked for we could make a thousand bullheads, or field literally hundreds of thousands of soldiers. And for us to make a small fleet… it's a big risk, and one that isn't likely to pay off."
Percy waved it off, "A navy is necessary. That nobody on Remnant has one just means it'll be easy to take the seas. Imagine what it'd do to a country at war if you could sit outside their one major port and stop anyone from leaving, or sit a few miles out and shell their defenses. That nobody's made any here yet baffles me."
"We have made them." Shiro stressed, "When they weren't as incredibly expensive as they started to get after the discovery of dust, and when strapping a few missiles to a bullhead didn't mean wooden ships could be sunk in seconds. Having a navy is a practically ancient concept."
Percy shook his head, "That's because your aversion to the grimm stopped you from continuing to research better ways to defend and arm them, because it'd be too expensive to lose. I admit an airship could outrange them by a good bit, but in every other situation a true warship has the advantage in every aspect of combat. These are huge investments, I agree, but if our opponent doesn't have a navy themselves then these ships are basically impossible to defeat."
"Not to a grimm." Shiro countered.
"Most of Remnant has shallow waters anyway, so we shouldn't need to risk it that often. Even to get to Atlas you could cross to Vale first and hug their coast, avoiding all but a few miles of deep waters entirely. Besides, if they need to go through deeper waters I can stay nearby."
"Percy, these are deep ocean grimm we're talking about. They're not the stuff you deal with on land and can dispatch in a few seconds. Most of what's out there would require at least a huntsman to deal with, but with ships that big it'll attract much larger grimm. The kinds we haven't seen on the surface in living memory. You don't want to fight these things."
Percy shot him a deadpan look. "Shiro, if the fight is in the ocean, I'm winning it."
Shiro opened his mouth to argue but apparently thought better of it, pausing mid-breath. "Okay, fine, I guess ocean stuff makes sense when we have you. If you say you wanna try it, we can try it. But that doesn't have anything to do with the other stuff you asked us to build. This armored car, for instance. If it runs into a grimm that it can kill, then a squad of soldiers in an armed bullhead or a single huntsmen would do just as well. If it runs into something it can't kill with that gun, then all the armor and protection isn't going to help it against any grimm large enough to carry it off, or cave it in."
"First of all it's a tank, not an armored car," Percy corrected lightly, earning an eye roll from Shiro, "Second, it's not for grimm. It might prove about as effective against grimm, but a lightly armored tank like that is immune to rifles. The bullets will bounce right off, but the tank can return fire. Plus, it's not completely without utility against grimm. Sure it could kill the same grimm as a squad of soldiers, but I'd like to see that same squad of soldiers drive across anima in a truck without having to stop to deal with a few grimm."
"First of all," Shiro mimicked him, "That's what you call lightly armored? It weighs over thirty tons, It's not light anything! And second, people don't generally drive across Anima because they know there are grimm."
"And what if there weren't?" Percy challenged, "Or what if they couldn't hurt you? A tank could drive across Anima and be attacked by every grimm from here to Argus and only need a new coat of paint. Sure it can't kill many more types of grimm than an average squad can, but it can resist a whole Hades of a lot more without blinking. Aircraft is expensive both to make and to operate. Moving an entire army a large distance in a reasonable timeframe is logistically impossible without an airship, and even then an airship can hold a small fraction of our police force or Atlas' military."
"What exactly do you consider a reasonable timeframe?" Shiro asked incredulously. "We'd be able to get our entire military to Argus in a few weeks, if we really needed to."
"That's optimistic and you know it." Percy snorted. "More likely, it'd take months. But yes, we could have a reasonable presence outside of what our bullheads could carry there within a few weeks. A few weeks is far too long. Imagine the specifications I gave you — a tracked vehicle capable of going over rougher terrains than our most durable cars, with armor thick enough to brush off any average grimm trying in vain to get at it, a size large enough to roll over almost anything that got in front of it, and a gun large enough to destroy almost anything that didn't fit into either of the first two categories, all at a consistent 40 miles an hour. No stopping to kill grimm every mile, no constant repairs from damages, no having to reroute or stop for the night because a tree fell over. They're not built to hold a lot of men, but that's why I also asked them to work on troop-carrying variants. We could have the bulk of our forces halfway across Anima in a day flat. Imagine not only what that lets us do if we have to go to war, but imagine what it lets us do if we don't. Imagine how many lives we could save by having a platoon of these things show up as soon as we get reports of a grimm migration."
"We have bullheads for that," Shiro countered halfheartedly. "And no matter how fast these things are, bullheads are faster."
"But we don't have infinite bullheads." Percy pointed out the obvious, "We've stopped a lot of the desolation of settlements in Mistral because we spend so much operating bullheads to send to anyone who needs help, but we don't have nearly enough of them to cover every grimm attack and never will. From the estimates R&D gave us, these things will cost half what a bullhead does. And ignoring maintenance, crews, training, docking, and all the other myriad expenses, how much dust does it take to keep a fully armed bullhead going for an hour? 2,000 lien worth? 3,000? You've seen the figures, these things burn less dust in an hour than a bullhead does taking off."
Shiro stayed silent for a moment while Percy took another small sip of his coffee. After a few seconds Shiro seemed to deflate, nodding defeatedly. "Alright, fair enough. I have my doubts they'll work as well as you say, but at this point there's nothing we can do but make some to test them. I still don't get these other designs you asked them to make, but considering the reasoning for the other two I'll take your word for it."
Percy nodded gratefully, "Glad to hear it. Now, while I'm back in Windpath for a few days I thought you'd like to see something. It's been here for a while, but I never told you about it." he told Shiro, leaning forward under the table to where he'd put said object when he brought it in this morning. Pulling out the box with both hands he sat it on top of the table, dusting it off slightly.
"You might remember that a while ago I told you I wanted a vault here, for important and personal things, to be guarded as discreetly and as much as possible. I didn't make my vault for personal items or valuables or lien or anything like that. I made it for this."
Pulling the lid off the box, Percy let the dull golden light shine up and out of its container, faintly coloring the ceiling in a yellow and blue glow. Reaching in with a healthy amount of caution, Percy pulled out a floating, glowing golden and blue lantern.
"Is that…" Shiro's mouth suddenly went dry and he sat up rigidly straight, staring at the item in Percy's hands.
"The relic of knowledge." Percy confirmed. "From the vault at Haven. I got it… that has to be more than a year ago, now, and needed a place to protect it. I don't really know how it works, but there's not exactly a wikipedia article I can find on it," he joked, remembering a moment later that wikipedia wasn't a thing here. If Shiro picked up on his slip, he didn't mention it.
Clearing his throat, Percy continued. "I asked the maiden who opened the vault for me about it, but she didn't know how to use it either. All I know is that it answers questions. I haven't been super concerned with figuring out how to use it. Half because I don't exactly have a place to start, and half because I mostly wanted it to keep it out of the wrong hands in the first place." He'd even tried asking Monty one time, to which he'd received a vaguely annoyed look and a 'that would be telling'.
"That's one of the relics, and it's just been… what, sitting in the basement this entire time?" Shiro asked, looking at Percy like he was crazy.
Percy just shrugged. "Where else you want me to put it?"
"On an island in the middle of the grimm sea, surrounded by freezing water and guarded by half of the police in Mistral, maybe?" Shiro suggested, "Or at least, something a bit more secure than a random vault in Windpath."
"Anything higher budget or priority and you'd be asking me questions I didn't have the answer to. Besides, anything with that many people is bound to attract attention from the wrong kinds of people. It's why this was so easy to steal — because it's hiding in plain sight, completely undefended. The only problem with that is that half a dozen randomly selected people around the planet know that at any given time, and have told even more people. My vault here is defended, but nobody interested in a relic would try looking there. At least, it's less of a target than some ultra-secure island which would do nothing to stop a maiden who really wanted it."
Plus, Percy didn't point out, when their main enemy was an immortal controlling the grimm and you were the only one even potentially strong enough to beat her, putting it thousands of miles away in grimm-infested waters wasn't the best idea.
Shiro sighed, "Alright, fine. But I'm putting some tighter security on that vault. Nobody should ask any questions about a paranoid crime lord holing up some dust and lien and stationing half an army around it."
Percy frowned, shooting him an annoyed look. "Yes, I'm aware nobody would question that, which is why I asked you to give it as much security as possible without drawing attention."
Shiro scratched his head abashedly. "Yeah, well, I kinda fell for it and thought you were stashing some lien and fake passports. The security's way tighter than you'd ever really need for that sort of thing, but not so much for a godly artifact."
"You need to trust me Shiro." Percy told him seriously. "I make it a habit to keep you informed, but for a variety of reasons there are sometimes things I can't tell you or properly explain. Those designs, for example. Utterly unconventional and unpractical by Remnant's standards, and yet I've seen them work. I know what they can do, and I know what Remnant's armies can do, and it's not even close."
"In my defense, half of my job is hearing what you tell me to do and interpreting what your end goal is, and then doing things to move us towards that goal without collapsing the entire thing on top of us." Shiro pointed out.
Percy sighed, "Yeah, that's fair. I think I've gotten better about telling you to do specific things when I need those things in particular done over the years, but this was some time ago. Just… get the extra security on the vault."
Shiro chuckled, downing the last bit of his coffee. "You got it, boss. So, other than leveraging this invasion to hit a bunch of diplomatic milestones, what's next?"
Percy frowned bitterly, downing his own mug. "Wolke declined my offer as both Percy and Perseus. He's spoken to both, and has direct contact with Jacques. If someone were to figure it out other than Jacques, it'll be him." Percy sighed, setting down his coffee and standing up, stretching where he stood and preparing himself to get on the long flight back to Vale.
"Wolke has officially become a problem."
Hope you enjoyed.
I know I've said this a billion times, but we really are getting close to canon, to the point I've actually written the very first scene which intersects with the canon timeline, excluding flashbacks & references of course. Can't tell ya when that is, but know that salvation is near for those of you waiting to see how all of this shenanigans impacts canon.
Next 2 chapters are up on pat-reon. Speaking of which, due to a recent downgrade we're unfortunately back to 2 chapters a month. Even though that technically applies to this month as well I did tell you all I'd be doing 3 chapters this month, and pulling back a chapter that I think I can write in time because 'I wasn't paid enough' just feels stingy. So take it as a thank you for all the support that both you guys and my supporters on pat-reon have shown me, that I'm intending on keeping the three chapter schedule for the month of june. Also as a side note someone reported me on AO3 and they came down p hard on me for linking pat-reon (though tbf they were more fair about it than most sites would have been) so chances of being able to shift this to a bit more of a full-time thing for me have gone a bit down. But, I'll still be doin best i can regardless.
I have a rant about discord, but since I went on a bit of a tangent up there I'll save it for chapter 43. Pat-reon and discord are linked on my profile 3
Next chapter June 10th.
