Hey! It's your friendly neighbourhood dark archer here! I felt the need to try posting something while I get myself sorted, as stated in my note before, my Bio mum died, I now know that I WAS feeling sad about it and possibly still am.
There won't be a funeral for me to attend unfortunately as my B.I.T.C.H older sister Eve has decided to be selfish and hide all the details and the ashes from the rest of the family.
Now enough of my gripping about things I can't control, let's see how my abomination of a story goes from here, yeah? Alons-y!
Chapter three: finally answers?
He was once again kitted out in his full mission gear, with a heavy pack on his back this time and a standard issue FCT night-scope semiautomatic rifle, that he had completed basic training to use since being semi-unwillingly drafted into the taskforce. He took note of his fellows around him and tried not to let his tiredness and aching back be too obvious, he held no illusions as to having any success if his squad partners knowing looks were any indication. He sighed and decided to get the teasing over with before the troop transport was filled by the rest of the squad. "Alright already!" He hissed at the woman sat directly across from him, he lightly flexed his Aura to try get the worst of the scratches his girlfriend left on him to heal that tiny bit faster, yay for massive Aura reserves!
For all his surliness he got a semi-restrained giggle in response "I guess Nora is as wild in bed as she is out of it eh? Guess she'd have to be to knock the energy out of our resident Aura battery, AND still have the stamina to skip off to her own mission after taking your "Massive Holy Lance" Blake said with a sly smirk that would fit better with Yang than the dark haired cat Faunus before him.
Jaune let his head fall into his hands as he let out an aggrieved groan "you've been hanging around Yang too long Blake! Your turning into a slightly less violent version of her." He shot back stubbornly "How did my relationship with Nora go from, me trying not to fall for my best mates girlfriend, to me dating said girl, to me somehow ending up in bed with her twice before we've dated more that a couple days!?" He questioned the room of the truck "We went from zero to a hundred like that!" He snapped his fingers, and looked almost pleadingly at the only other soul in the vehicle for some much needed answers, sadly said answers were not to be found.
"Sorry Jaune, I don't know what to say, except I only accept sound cancelling earmuffs from you two for colours day this year." She smiled cattishly, shifting the reforged gambol shroud to a more comfortable position as she sat in her designated deployment seat, then she narrowed her golden eyes and a serious expression settled over her features "You remember that this is a stealth mission right? Are you going to be any use out here with all that white on?"
Jaune didn't let the comment get to him, she wasn't trying to be mean and he knew that, Blake just cared about the success of the mission and with his usual getup he was a liability in the stealth department. "No worries there, Agent Belladonna, I happen to have been given special authorisation to utilise the most state of the art! Most up and coming new stealth tech! The latest of the late!" He hyped, and received a baleful glare in response. "Heh, so I click this button here and my white goes whoosh and turns black." He finished lamely as he deflated from his current partner's lack of enthusiasm for his, rarely seen nowadays, theatrics. "Nora would've clapped and cheered for my presentation." He grumbled to himself as he sat back in his deployment seat and crossed his arms over his chest and the weapon clipped there.
Jaune began to wonder where the rest of the squad was hiding and why they were using a military personnel carrier truck for a stealth mission so he once again broke the silence "Any idea why we're using a loud, noisy truck to get us to the mission site Blake? And where's the rest of the squad?" He put his hand on his chin, stroking an imaginary beard. Just as he aired the words aloud they both jumped in their seats as a heavy thump thump thump came from the side of the vehicle and a brisk no nonsense drill sergeant voice rang out
"Aaaaaallllllllriiiiight ladies, get your sorry behinds to your deployment stations toot sweet!" The voice that bellowed out was that of the squad commander, Crimson Sabrehound, a Dobermann Faunus with black and tan patches in his slowly greying hair with the grey starting at his temples and around the short ears on his head. He wore a black and tan combat jacket with cargo pants in the same colouration, the weapons he carried were simple standard issue, a semiautomatic rifle slung across his chest, a side arm 9mm holstered on his hip and a pair of fang like combat knives sheathed on his thighs. "We are going on a stealth mission this time round again Pups! So I'll get the yelling out of the way now!" He barked. "This here transport is called 'Ulysses' it, despite its outward appearance is not a simple troop transportation vehicle, no! Ulysses is a masterwork of stealth technology application, the coating on the outer shell serves to mask heat signatures and deflect visible light in a form of active camouflage similar to the abilities of some chameleon Faunus. Ulysses also has the quietest engine set up of any land locked vehicle to date, don't ask me how that's up to the geek squad at HQ to ramble on 'bout. Seats a total of eight combatants and one driver, meaning two squads and a getaway! You mess up in this rig close to target and we all go kerplunk! ya get me!?" Sabrehound said as he bodily smacked the backs of the six men cramming themselves into the truck, making the inside progressively more humid with the heat of multiple bodies. "Alright! Sound of White Wolf!" Came the call as the men settled into their seats and buckled their harnesses on. The calls rang back clear.
"Howl one, clear, sir!"
"Howl two, clear, sir!"
"Howl three, clear, sir!"
And so on until everyone was accounted for by the squad commander, the transport driver included. Once he had taken not that all units assigned to his squad were accounted for Sabrehound continued briefly. "Good to see you sorry lot know how to sit on yer' arses, hahaaah!"
"We all know what our mission is today, we get in and we take down the baddies at the target zone and haul arse outta there with whatever info and/or hostages they've got holed up in there, aim to incapacitate or capture the enemy hostiles but don't pansy up on me when it comes time to end a threat! With us today, by the grace of The Big Bad Wolfe upstairs in our FCT's Oval Office, we have two licensed huntsmen." Sabrehound waved an arm to Jaune and Blake, drawing the attention of the troops around them. "First we got with us, Agent John Arc, aka. The White Demon, The Bastion of Beacon, and my personal favourite, the man who lays with the berserker of Beacon, the Valkyrie slayer!" He raised his arms in a theatrical way, much like a hype-man would do when introducing a RWA(Remnant Wrestling Association) competitor and despite the obvious use of the wrong first name, Jaune felt that Sabrehound was a born showman and was doing a great job at keeping the morale of his men high. Jaune wasn't so sure about the nicknames he was hearing though as he flushed bright red, the nicknames had increased, how had they increased?! He was sure that he'd die from embarrassment on this mission before the enemy was even in sight.
The men of White Wolf squad let out raucous cheers and had to be settled down by Sabrehound before he continued. "That's enough! That's enough you strays! Leave the mad lad be!" He grinned. "Second up! You can look but don't touch! Or you'll have more than a few cat-scratches! Agent Blake Belladonna, the former Deadly Flower of the Fang, the Shadow of Beacon!"
Once more Sabrehound hyped up his people and they let loose with another round of whooping and hollering, it didn't take them long to calm down at the wave of Sabrehound's hand this time as the all glanced at Blake and saw the ears she now proudly displayed had flattened back against her head in irritation, her gold-yellow eyes narrowed into a glower at them all.
"Ah, ahem, right. Well as you heard Johnie boy her has himself a new squeeze that I'm sure non of you want to disappoint should he not come home!" Sabrehound took a beat to reign in the situation. The men collectively shivered at the prospect of returning without the mad lad. "As he's our acting second in this engagement, ordered by the powers that be, you Pups better listen to what he says and when. Granted this will be one of our patented silenti ops, so keep chatter to the bare minimum once we get to the op-site."
He then looked at them all and his face drew into a serious expression. "Whatever happens out there you bastards have a duty to get your arses home, like every time before we do this our way and we come home for a cold one and a kiss from whatever man or lady you got waiting for you. Don't Fuck This Up!"
Sabrehound then gestured to Jaune, indicating that he wanted him to stand and give a few words. Needless to say the young knight was a bit shocked by this, how could he follow behind such a charismatic act as the S.L.(squad leader.)? He gulped as he stood slowly, hoping that they didn't notice the shaking of his knees.
"Ahem, first off, uh, my name is Agent Jaune Arc and I, uhm, just want to say.. let's do our best out there and come home big G-goddamn F-fucking heroes! Heh?" He tried to hype them up at least a little by putting up a weak attempt at the hu-rah type energy they seemed to respond to, it obviously didn't work very well as all he got was a single whoop from a man who was wearing honest to go crimson tinted aviator glasses and a few scattered claps. He flushed a bright red as he awkwardly sat down, embarrassed at how he failed to keep the momentum that Sabrehound had built up so expertly. Jaune felt a nudge on his boot and looked up into the bemused gold-yellow of Blake's eyes as she let a cattish smirk break out on her usually stoic face.
"Nice speech, o' Bastion of Beacon, Slayer, or should I say Layer, of Valkyries." She mocked good-naturedly with a slight chuckle. Jaune groaned as he divided that, yes, the embarrassment he was suffering right now would kill him before he saw combat this day.
"Quiet you, miss 'deadly flower'." He grumbled to her, and watched as the smirk faded from her face somewhat before returning as a more relaxed, and genuine smile as they both chuckled, their moods lightening a bit as they proceeded to settle back in to hear the last minute rundown from Sabrehound.
"Alright then, Pups, here's how the team is gonna break down while we do this. We got multiple players in this game that aren't our direct responsibility as we are on first strike, not evac, nor clean up. We're going with a standard split and conquer tactic where we split and we conquer the enemy base with as much efficiency as possible, and to do that I'm having Howls 1 & 3 running overwatch on the two highest points of the ruin-town, here and here." He said as he pointed to two larger dilapidated structures in the north and south points on the holographic map projected on the rear of the Ulysses' doors. "We'll be calling these two buildings 'the watchtowers' as the enemy forces already seem to be using them for that purpose, Howl one will take north, and Howl three, the south. No screw ups ya big lugs."
Howl one and Howl three were, by far, the biggest of the group and looked less like stealth focused fighters and more like close combat brawlers, this however was far from the case even though they did have some close in equipment to use.
Howl one, AKA. Bull-neck Bob, was a large Ox Faunus man with shaved off hair and a broken glossy black horn on the left of his head near his temple to match the unbroken one on the right side. He wore a dark blue and grey combat jacket and cargo-pants in the same colour, the pack on his back was a grey-camouflage unit with a survival kit and spare ammunition for the large .50 cal customisable high impact sniper rifle he was currently doing final checks on, with the stock of the weapon sitting between his massive, size 26, gunmetal grey combat boots. He also had two hand cannons holstered on his belt that had large curved blades attached to the top and under side of the barrels. He was a largely gentle soul but, from what Jaune had heard from the intel department, he was a fierce fighter when on missions.
His partner for this mission was Howl Three, AKA. Bear-Claw Billy, also a large man not much shorter than his Ox Faunus counterpart, with long shaggy brown hair tied of with multiple bands of reddish brown chord that pulled the mass away from the small round bear ears that sat atop his head. He wore much the same equipment as Bob with the only real difference being that instead of having a pair of hand cannons he had an old, worn, set of bear-claw gauntlets connected by a long bronze chain and hanging at his waist. His rifle was also larger in the body than Bob's weapon with a heavier stock, anti-material ammunition and a heavy tri-pod that could be electrified to stun enemies in an emergency. He wore midnight blue, size 24 combat boots and fingerless gloves of the same colour, he also wore dull gunmetal grey steel plates on the joints of his jacket and pants.
According to the intel department's information he was from a line of frontier huntsman, yet didn't show any talent with that line of work, favouring more organised combat units like the FCT. He, like, Bob preferred to fight from long range despite their bulk and obvious strength.
"Next team will be, Howls 2, 4, 5 & 6. You lot will be spreading out across the ruin, blocking of the east and west entrances to the ruin and rounding up any stragglers that either escape the main assault point here in the centre. You'll also be helping guide the hostages to the evacuation teams that will be stationed here, here and here as a part of the support team. Alright that's all I gotta say really, the driver of Ulysses will be controlling our Comms and keeping the rig as an emergency evac point for us if things go sideways, so don't do something dumb like lead the enemy to him! Perform final gear checks then we move!" The squad commander detailed, pointing to all the relevant points on the holographic map again. Jaune took the opportunity to look over the rest of the team, he was very curious of the members that made up the squad.
First up was Howl 2, AKA. Foxfire Phil, a medium sized man with his red hair in a short military buzz cut, clearly exposing his red furred fox ears. He carried a mecha-shift rifle that could unfold into a pair of fang like curved blades linked together by a long iron chain, that fired predominantly special blue-fire Dust rounds as his file with intel stated. He wore a red and dark blue airforce style combat jacket and the same style cargo pants that was common in the squad in the same colour scheme, and had red-steel plated combat boots. He was also the one who was wearing the ridiculous crimson-red aviator glasses. His file said he was a bit of a wild card, carefree and reckless, but otherwise a competent member of the team.
Next on the list was Howl 4, AKA. Big Joe, who despite his nickname was the smallest of the squad, barely coming up to Jaune's waist, he wore a black and red heavy-impact resistant flak jacket and an old leather pilots cap with a pair of cracked square shaped aviation goggles, he had a large heavy blue & grey-camouflage pack on his back with a, frankly, gigantic firearm strapped to the side that looked somewhere between a flamethrower and a rocket/grenade launcher. Jaune couldn't hold back his curiosity and blurted out. "Uhh, this might be a dumb question but, why do they call you 'Big Joe'?"
Even as he said it, Jaune winced internally at the boneheadedness of the question. However the smaller man jolted upright in his seat excitedly and began waving his hands about in complex patterns that Jaune could recognise as a advanced form of Valean sign language, unfortunately Jaune didn't know any of the language system himself so all he could do was watch in puzzlement as the man told some grand tale that Jaune couldn't understand. Big Joe continued for a moment before he noticed the confusion on Jaune's face and he deflated with a frown on his face when he realised that he'd need a translator. Somewhat crestfallen at not being understood, the little man ran a hand down his face as he dug his other elbow into the side of his seat mate to his left, which happened to be the large bear Faunus man, Billy, who swatted the smaller man's arm away lightly and grunted. "Knock it off Joey! Huh? You need me to translate? Why didn't ya say so before ya bruised my side? Oh, I wasn't looking at ya, right sorry buddy, what was the question again?"
The bear man rumbled in a, vocally, one sided conversation. The large man turned his attention to Jaune and grinned jovially, showing sharp canines. "We call him 'Big Joe' coz he's the biggest Pyro we know and he's got the latest, biggest, most boomiest of boom sticks current Atleisian tech can provide!"
At hearing the, very, simplified reason Billy gave for Joe's nickname, the smaller man smacked his face with his long rats tail, that he'd hidden behind himself and his pack, in exasperation at the obviously less epic version of why he was called 'Big Joe' and let out I silent sigh. Jaune was briefly reminded of another short mute person he knew of, with whom he'd a much less pleasant encounter with not long after arriving at Atlas. It got him wondering with another potentially stupid question that his mouth was once again faster than his brain when he voiced it. "Soooo...why can't you talk? Accident or combat injury?"
The quiet in the deployment cabin became uncomfortable as every single member of the unit besides Blake and himself suddenly looked more serious than before, with dark and faraway looks to their eyes as they all seemed to recall something unpleasant. "It was an experiment when me and Joe were kids, 'm not gonna say more than that." Billy growled sullenly and looked away.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to bring up such a sensitive subject." Jaune replied awkwardly. Big Joe simply gave him a wan smile and shrugged, showing that he didn't have any negative feelings towards Jaune for asking, before taking his weapon into his small hands and doing a final check on the massive equipment. The young knight took the opportunity to look over at the last two members of the squad.
Howls 5 & 6 AKA. The Gemini twins, Exi and Pente, ironically enough their names translated to Six and Five in old Mistrali, reversing their assigned squad designations. The twins were, honestly, quite androgynous even when wearing similar uniforms to the rest of the squad. Exi had more violet accents to their combat jacket, cargo pants and combat boots, while Pente had a more aquamarine colour scheme. Both of them had small diamond shaped arm shields and what looked to be extra shield pieces clipped to their shoulders, back and the sides of their legs with the shields looking like they could combine into various different sized shields for various purposes. The two of them wore masks in their colour choice on their faces that connected to the undershirts they both wore under their more uniform clothing. Apparently, according to their FCT personnel files they hardly ever spoke any language other than old Mistrali or to each other when outside of missions. They seemed to prefer working together quietly and on their own as opposed to with other members of the White Wolf squad. Their large, silver furred, Maine coon ears twitched in unison as they detected his scrutiny and they both turned their heads to regard him with their large, yellow-green eyes, and blink slowly at him, much like the namesake animal of their Faunus traits. Did that mean they liked him? No surely not, they weren't actually cats so that mannerism didn't hold any significance...right?
He quickly turned his head away to what he felt was a more neutral direction and tried to focus on the coming mission as he felt, more than heard, the Ulysses rumble silently to life beneath his feet. A quiet chuckle reached his ear coming from the direction of FoxFire Phil. "Looks like someone's popular with the twins, eh?" He drawled lazily with a distinct Vacuo accent.
Jaune blushed, once again, at the man's teasing and finally confirmed that, yes indeed he would not be dying of anything other than embarrassment on this mission.
1345 hours Solitas standard time.
Unknownairspace ; locationtracking blocked by executive order.
Flight time since departure ; 14 hours continuous thrust.
Estimatedarrival time at target destination ; Unknown, no data available.
Remaining unit power for sustainedcontinuous flight ; 67% before next mandatorylanding for recharging of unit.
Sustained thruster burn capacity ; 62% remainingbeforemaintenance is required, scheduled auto repairsystem activation for next land fall.
Recommendation ; find a secure landing zone within 24 hours Solitas standard time.
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If anyone were to be out in the wastelands near the border to the Grimmlands at that moment and looked up, they would see a fast moving man sized object blasting through the skies a Mach speed,a contrail of white cloud and moisture trailing it as it passed. They would be, justifiably, shocked to find that said object was actually not some super advanced military missile or drone, but a true flesh and blood man in an armoured flight suit much like one could find in comic books of heroes and villains one might read as an awkward, barely social adult or simply one who likes comics and thinks they are cool.
The man inside the flight suit read the information on his HUD with a detached air as his thoughts kept straying back to what he suspected had returned to his life, his most irritating adversary he'd ever dealt with, "The Old One", and their "syndicate of Purity". He was making good time to his destination with no unexpected problems or detours so far, sure there had been the odd flying Grimm that gotten in his path but he'd taken care of them by simply levelling his blade in front of himself and briefly kicking the afterburners on allowing him to literally blast his way through the monsters with reckless abandon, it didn't really matter to him at this point if anyone tried to follow his path because there was no way for them to navigate the natural protections his destination had. All technological navigation was useless once he reached the edge of the Grimmlands anyway, so he was now navigating his way on nothing but instinct and some vague memories of what the world had looked like the last time he was there. So far as he knew he was the only living person capable of making the journey to the place of his origin, but if it was true that there was a new 'Old One' active in this era, then he couldn't take any chances and so on he flew hoping against all hope that he wouldn't need to call on his alter ego to take care of the threat to his people, hopefully the path he took now would be enough to prevent the path of the 'Fenrir' that he'd so long ago tried to put behind him.
They had travelled from the FCT headquarters near Atlas and Mantle for hours, almost a full day, and the comfort of the Ulysses' seats had long worn off by the halfway point to the target zone of the mission. Just as Jaune was beginning to wonder how much longer they would be travelling for there was a buzz from a small speaker near the drivers hatch that led to the cockpit of the vehicle. "ETA to target: fifteen minutes, begin preparations for deployment."
The driver of the Ulysses spoke in an almost emotionless tone as they relayed the information to those in the back of the truck. Jaune just thanked Oum that they hadn't made their approach in an airborne vehicle, like a bullhead or it's larger counterpart a bulkhead, his meagre supply of motion sickness medication probably wouldn't have lasted much longer with the nervousness he'd been feeling up until this point. Sure his Aura and now his Semblance helped him with a lot of thing like his pesky motion sickness now but it never quite got rid of it completely.
'Okay Jaune, time to man up, you're good at being in charge on missions and you done this a ton over the past few months, just breath normally and keep your head clear.' He thought to himself. 'You studied their mission tactics, memorised all the information and data that'll be of use on this op and trained for hours almost everyday with your new equipment and your old gear. You. Can. Do. This.'
And with that last self-pep talk he closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath to centre himself, like Ren had taught him, and let it out slowly. When he opened his eyes they were cleared of the nerves they held moments before, as he focused back to the real world he noticed everyone in the squad looking at him like he'd changed from the goofball at the earlier briefing, into someone else entirely. He noticed that in his efforts to calm himself he'd accidentally triggered his Semblance on himself, doubling and amplifying his Aura repeatedly in a loop, to the point he was glowing a bright pure white light that he had to suppress quickly if his new stealth tech was to work. It would be pointless to try join the attack run while glowing like a second sun in the middle of the night.
"Sorry about that everyone, does anybody need an Aura boost before we get going?" He asked the group, after all they'd be splitting up to take on the militant slave traders.
"I could do with a quick boost Jaune, never know when we'll encounter the enemy and part of our plan does rely on my shadow clones." Blake responded.
Jaune quickly placed his hand on her shoulder and willed the overflow of his Semblance into Blake, in turn bolstering her Aura and Semblance to levels they had not yet tested before today, her Aura blazed purple light across her skin for a few moments before it faded back into her body. They were as ready as the could be then as it seemed that no one else on the team had an unlocked Aura, which Jaune thought the intel department should have told him about, but ultimately it didn't matter. He felt the Ulysses come to a silent halt and the deployment doors opened smoothly with a slight hiss of escaping air to reveal the darkened landscape around them.
The area was devoid of any other inhabitants, thankfully they'd picked a spot close enough to the ruined town yet still far enough away to avoid patrols. They all looked out into the near pitch black of the night, the Faunus not having any issues with the lack of light, and Jaune pressed a small switch on the side of the protective bulletproof glasses he wore, turning on the night vision function and bathing the world in green.
There were two quiet clicks from everyone's Comms, as Sabrehound gave a predetermined signal to begin the silent mission, Bull-neck Bob and Bear-claw Billy swiftly exited the rear of the truck and began a fast advance toward the two large 'watchtowers' one a dilapidated guard tower with the top room exposed and the other one was a similarly dilapidated old church building with a tall crumbling bell tower, both with the telltale glow of a bonfire at the top floor. As the two burly Faunus disappeared into the night the others unloaded and got into a ready position, with weapons raised, for the 'clear' signal over the Comms. The team waited for all of five minutes before they got the signal, five short rapid clicks on the Comms, it seemed that the glow at the top of the towers had destroyed the enemy guard's ability to see any approaching threat. That was good news for the assault team.
Jaune had activated his gears new stealth mode before exiting the Ulysses and so he began to make his way forward into the ruins shifting the aim of his rifle about and making sure his path was clear of enemy forces, he shifted quietly and in formation with the rest of White Wolf as they slowly split off into pairs and began their individual tasks for the mission, Howl 2 and Howl 4 moving to secure the east side of the ruin with the Gemini twins taking the west. Which left Jaune, Blake and S.L. Sabrehound moving on the centre building, a large warehouse like building where the hostages were being held. He nodded to the two and, as agreed upon before on the way, took point.
The trio moved quickly, each covering the other as they approached. The warehouse had two entryways that could be accessed on the north and south sides facing the 'watchtowers', with the main large door on the west side blocked by a pile of rubble from another building that had collapsed in front of it. The could see the upper access way to the loft area, which was Blake's entrance point, was clear and so they immediately split up, Jaune going to the north entrance, Blake to the loft and S.L. Sabrehound to the south.
Jaune waited by his entry point until they could get a confirmation code from the towers of how many bodies were inside, a tally of the enemy units and the captured Faunus. He heard the confirmation code for each member of the squad click through the coms, letting him know that they were in position, once they had finished the check in he clicked his own confirmation code to signal that he was ready. Click..click,click..click..click. (Jaune's confirm code.) he then waited for Howl three to send the signal with the number of people inside. Not long later the soft clicking came through, 'Approximately thirty mobile bodies, probably the hostiles, and fifteen stationary, the hostages.' He sent his confirmation code after S.L Sabrehound and Blake sent theirs and prepared to take his assigned door. He charged his right foot with enough Aura to cripple an Ursa Minor and waited for the first sounds of combat to reach him as Blake provided a distraction inside.
Soon there were crashing and gunshot sounds from behind the door, and Jaune swung his leg forward in a stomping kick, crashing the sole of his reinforced boot into the door and blasting it into splinters. The silent part of the mission was over, now was the time for fighting, the initial distraction that Blake's clones had caused was exacerbated by the loud boom of the doors being violently opened. All part of the plan. Jaune quickly assessed the situation inside, taking note of where the cages holing the captured Faunus were, and carefully taking aim at the enemy forces he squeezed the trigger of his rifle, making precise shots on the enemy to incapacitate rather than kill and although some were not so lucky in the heat of the battle, the White Wolves weren't there to eliminate the slave traders, only to capture them and free the Faunus. He moved effortlessly around the room and aiming carefully to avoid potentially hitting a hostage, strengthening himself with his Aura and 'feathering the boosters' to add more mobility to his movement, using the limited influence his Aura could manifest on the physical world after his training with Ren a month ago.
He aimed, he fired, he moved. Taking cover to reload behind a pile of stacked crates, he took the chance to quietly Comm Blake. "Blake, I need you to send some of your clones to start opening cages and guiding the civilians out, this looks like it's going to be a protracted fight, I took a quick count, and besides the dead, the enemy keeps getting back up. We need the civilians out of here so they can't be used against us, with my Semblance boost your clones have limited autonomy right?"
"On it, clearing Civs, and Jaune? Look out for the guy in the middle of the pack, there's something off about him. Sabrehound tried to take him out with a suppressant shot but one of the thugs I'd cut down early on suddenly jumped up out of nowhere and tanked the shop for him." Blake replied as she began to send copies to free the Faunus.
"Got it, I'll head over and back up the squad leader, head over and back us up too once you're done with the Civs." He said calmly. He got up and out from his cover and with a burst of Aura he leaped towards the centre of the room, where he saw S.L. Sabrehound struggling against a thin, old man with a chipped and dented claymore, held effortlessly in one hand, and a positively ancient looking mechanical prosthetic arm with three straight blades where the hand should be. The man appeared to be dressed like an old-timey butler, with a tail-coat jacket and all, with one sleeve roughly torn away around the robotic arm. He wore strange, three clawed steel caps over the top of his formal dress shoes, and had his silver hair pulled back in an elegant tail that reached the small of his back. He was an odd mix between the elegance of an aristocratic servant and a brutish thug, and he absolutely blazed with a sickly green Aura that radiated off his skin in wisps of violently twisting light and gave off a vile, oily feeling. All the better to match the man's nasal and pompous voice. "Tsk tsk tsk, whom let these animals in? They doth not even know the first rule of combat etiquette! One must introduce one's self before engaging in a duel to the death!"
The old cyborg butler complained, despite not having introduced himself either. Jaune could see Sabrehound was having a hard time indeed, trying to fend off the crushing swings of the claymore and the swifter strikes and kicks that came from the cyborgs other arm and legs, often digging the larger weapon into the ground to use as a fulcrum to spin around and slash with all three lighter equipped limbs. This was not a fight for firearms, and so Jaune slung his rifle behind him and tightened its strap to his back to prevent it swaying and getting in his way, and thinking as he did so. Maybe I should ask Ruby for some help adding a rifle function to Crocea Mors... it'd have to be a single shot though so maybe not.'
He drew his ancestral blade and expanded his shield, settling it into its familiar place on his arm. As he charged his Semblance up, causing his Aura to flash from pure white to a white-gold in colour, he called out to Sabrehound. "Crimson! Go take care of the grunts and leave the crazy old guy to me, I'm better equipped to deal with an Aura enhanced cyborg than you are at the moment."
The squad leader dared a glance at Jaune, noting the seriousness in his gaze, and ducked under a swing of te enemies claymore, letting off a few more shots as he rolled out and away from the cyborg. "He's all yours kid, I just hope you know what you're doing."
Sabrehound dashed off in the direction of a group of enemies that were making an attempt to contain the hostages and fend off Blake's shadow clone's advances. Jaune carefully squared up to the cyborg butler and raised his sword in an imitation of an aristocratic duelling salute, complete with an unnecessary flourishing twirl of the blade. The madman's eyes widened and a greasy grin spread on his face, not realising that Jaune had only done that move to prey on the obvious hang up the crazy butler had on so called combat etiquette.
"Finally! An opponent whom hast some inkling of the finer details of noble combat! And a Pure being at that as well! Ha, haaah!" The cyborg butler exclaimed, a manic gleam in his eye. "Pray, allow this one the first introduction young sir knight! This one bears the name of Jacques, Jacques Le Ripper!"
The man, now known as Jacques Le Ripper, bowed deeply with a leg poised out behind him, his prosthetic arm crossed over his chest and sweeping his massive claymore out to the side, doing all of this without breaking eye contact with Jaune the whole time and with an insane tilt to his head. As unnerving as the sight was, Jaune thought it best to return the greeting but leaving out the bow. And so he added a slightly more theatrical spin to his name in hopes of distracting the crazed Jacque from noticing what was happening behind him. "I am Jaune of house Arc , eldest son of the house, the Bastion of Beacon, the White Daemon of justice, and the man who lays with the Berserker of Beacon. (He blushed slightly at adding that one, but it just randomly came out.) I hear by challenge you to a gentleman's duel."
Half of what he babbled just then was a mix of the nicknames he'd been labelled with and bits from some of the olden time tales passed down through his family from times long lost to them now, when it was knights in armour that fought for the lives of the people against the Grimm. Jaune himself had never really believed the stories, there were huntsmen for as long as there was history, but he knew that this was the kind of thing that would allow him to buy more time.
"Oohhohhohohohohohohohoooo! Yes! Accepted! I shall finally have mine self a duel worth reporting to mine Master!" Jacques reacted with sick glee, the man truly was deranged. Jaune ran through his options and mentally ran a checklist of his equipment, he needed to figure out the patterns this enemy would employ and the tactics that would be best to counter them.
Jaune raised his shield and began the simplest of his plans, slowly build up an Auric charge in his shield, stopping the Aura just before it hit the trigger device in the centre, then releasing it all at once in an Aura overcharge. It was effectively turning his shield into a makeshift hard light Aura cannon, and he could only do it once as the technique would burn out the trigger if not rupture the shield entirely. While he built the charge around the main trigger he simultaneously activated the smaller backup hard light projector he'd attached before the mission, to strengthen his shield against the massive claymore that had already been swung at him with punishing force. The shield held and Jaune lanced out with his blade, activating the ice Dust in the hilt to unleash a cutting wave of ice from the edge of his weapon, which the butler dodged with acrobatic grace. Barely.
Jaune punished Jacques for that, as the man flipped in mid air, he took a medium sized fire dust crystal out of a pouch on his leg, infusing it with a trickle of Aura he lobbed it hard at the butlers face where it exploded with a loud BANG! Jaune grinned for a moment before he had to duck behind his shield once again as a bladed arm came piercing through the smoke toward his eye. 'Yikes that was close!' He thought momentarily panicked. "Okay, game on!" Jaune mumbled below his breath. He then launched a white-gold crescent of Aura through his sword in a horizontal arc, attempting to bisect Jacques as he manoeuvred around to the side using his Aura to boost step there faster. He could feel his liberal use of Aura beginning to take its toll even with his Semblance creating a near infinite loop on his reserves. It was time to use the shield cannon, he had used the other attacks to cause a decent smokescreen so he could get behind the lunatic man and negate any attacks that came his way and it had worked spectacularly.
He clicked his Comm online briefly and called into it. "Big boom incoming get ready to finish subduing Huntsman level hostile." And then he released the built up charge in his shield, there was a flash of white gold and an absence of sound for a second before it all came rushing back as he felt himself get blasted off his feet and sent flying back with a powerful KRAKOOOM! He felt his shield arm go numb from the blowback and swore to never experiment with that idea ever again, damnit Ruby!
He got to his feet and shook the feeling back into his arm, then looked at the damage he'd done to his family shield which thankfully had taken the explosion well, with minor charring to the surface and the only true sacrifice being the hard light emitter. There was a large cloud of smoke and debris where Le Ripper was standing in their brief fight and it was hard to see what was happening in there. Then Jaune saw a silhouette and paled as the smoke began to clear. "Aww come on!"
Laughter, manic and unpleasant rang forth. "Indeed a valiant attempt at catching mine self off guard! Playing off mine honour, only to employ foul trickery!" Le Ripper seethed as he pounded the end of his claymore into the floor and let it go.
"Now, this one doth believe it time to place the chess pieces back on the board, hmm?" His head tilted manically to the side again as his greasy smile returned and he raised his human hand up, middle finger and thumb pressed together ready to snap.
Snap! Jaune didn't know what to expect for a moment when he saw the unconscious enemy combatants around them raising to their feet often with sickening pops and cracks as their bodies contorted unnaturally in cases where the individual had fallen awkwardly or gotten caught under something. Bones broke and muscles tore as the bodies jerked and jolted as they forced their way to standing, they hung there like marionettes on a string, standing bonelessly and shaking unsteadily. They occasionally bumped into one another, stumbling and falling over only to haul themselves up again and shuffle between Jacques and the three FCT operatives.
Jaune grimaced at the sounds of popping and cracking bone. "What the heck?!"
"Oh my Ohm, that's just sick!" Blake exclaimed as she landed next to Jaune, readying Gambol Shroud to fight. "What's the play here Jaune?"
He narrowed his eyes as he tried to figure out what was happening to the enemy fighters, and then he saw it, at the back of the neck, near the brain stem on all the remaining slave traders there was a thin sickly green line of Aura piercing into the flesh. His eyes widened in horror as he realised what was happening and he instinctively took a step back.
Jacques began laughing maniacally. "Hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahhahhhaaaahhh, let us now see how the young trickster knight and his animal pets survive fighting against mine marionette army hmmm?! Mine great magic, what thou fools name a Semblance, hath been graced with the name of 'Puppeteer'!"
Jaune glanced at Blake as his face paled, they had been made to read up on the FCT's Semblance classification registry that recorded every known Semblance and categorised them in to types, starting with whether it affected the self or had an external affect and branching out from there. It was obviously impossible to catalogue each and every unique Semblance with 100% accuracy, but it at least gave most field operatives a way to easily identify and warn others of the potential dangers the Semblance encountered would likely pose.
"All active units be advised, Agent Belladonna, S.L. Sabrehound and myself, Agent Jaune Arc, have engaged with an enemy who has a class one external use Semblance, the Semblance appears to be a body hijacking ability affecting non-conscious living beings without Aura protection. Semblance user, self named as Jacques Le Ripper, is noted to be of unstable mental status." Jaune spoke clearly into his Comms.
"Agent Belladonna and I, as hunter academy certified huntsmen shall engage with the huntsman target, requesting backup for submission protocols of the victims of body hijack semblance, be warned, do not get knocked out, long range combat advised."
He grimaced at suddenly calling the play, instead of letting the S.L. do it, but ultimately he felt he'd made the right call. He shifted his shield a bit to sit more comfortably on his arm in it's damaged state and readied his sword to rush in to battle again, plotting as quick a path as he could to engage the mad-cyborg-butler, who'd jumped atop the handle of his claymore and was twirling around in a mad ballerina marionette dance with his arms jerking at random angles occasionally and his head never sitting straight on his shoulders, always tilted to one side maniacally. Coincidentally the movement shifted the man's hair aside and Jaune saw something that made him feel sick, on the side of Jacques head where his ears should have been as a human were instead two small metallic cylinders with cables reaching up to the top of his head and stopping there most Faunus would have their beast ears, only for Jacques he had two metal plates grafted to his skull.
"I-Is that? A-are those...? I-I think he's a Faunus!?" Jaune exclaimed in horror at seeing the mutilation, and at the realisation that there was at least one Faunus involved in selling out their own kind. The shocked statement made the mad man twitch, and Blake gasped as she paused for second and looked the man over again.
"No way..." She muttered in disbelief as her eyes confirmed the signs that led to Jaune's theory.
"Doth not compare mine purified existence to that of those heathen beasts!" Jacques seethed, small amounts of white foam beginning to form at the corners of his lips as his eyes reddened with how wide open with disgust they were. He had stopped his twirling marionette dance and held the grip of his weapon with white knuckles and a foot resting on the guard near the handle, suspending the man at the end of the large weapon in a crouch. "ATTACK MINE PAWNS! KILL THE HEATHEN SCUM!"
The words were bellowed loud and clear, with a touch of fanatical fervour and all the bodies suddenly jerked, twitched and finally launched themselves bonelessly at the trio of FCT members. Jaune, Blake and Sabrehound all began fighting to hold them back while waiting for the reinforcements to arrive, trying to fend off intermittent attacks from Jacques as well as the mad man leaped and pirouetted around the area while lashing out unpredictably anytime he drew near the beleaguered trio. Sabrehound had it the hardest as he didn't have Aura to protect himself against the accumulation of wounds he was steadily gaining. While Blake was able to mitigate some of the sheer amount of the enemy number that recklessly crowded them using her shadow clones, she too was beginning to tire as the effects of Jaune's Semblance began wearing off and she now had to use her Semblance more sparingly.
Jaune hacked, slashed, stabbed, and bashed with his sword and shield, not allowing himself to let up as the enemy kept getting back up, not caring of the damage their bodies suffered. He tried to keep the wounds to non-lethal levels, but with the enemy getting up time and again he had to start putting them down in a more permanent manner that had him grinding his teeth in frustration. And all the while Jacques was screaming and screeching that he and his 'Master' would 'purify the world' and 'return human kind to the days of magic and glory'.
"This is Howl 2, we're almost there, hold on a little longer." A voice came from their Comms. "We sent the big gun ahead, so be ready for a big bang."
"Ohm damnit Phil! We can't let Big Joe loose in a confined space!" Sabrehound swore in to his mic, as he barely ducked a sloppy haymaker from a larger puppet-man. There was silence on the Comms in response. "Shit! Agents we got incoming high volatility explosives inbound via tiny pyromaniac gremlin! We gotta end this before he gets here and blows us to the shattered moon!"
"Aww man! We just can't catch a break!? First we got a cyborg-butler nut job Faunus that sells his own kind and thinks he's been 'purified', whatever that means, now we have to deal with one of our own, who is supposed to help us, coming and potentially blowing us up!?" Jaune bemoaned, getting ready to dig deeper than he had before into his reservoir of Aura to give Blake and himself as much of a boost as he could. "Crimson, retreat, I'm going to overcharge mine and Blake's Auras, it's a risky, last ditch move our teams have been theorising for a bit now, but it's likely to be a problem for us to have regular people too close."
Jaune gave the order and explained calmly, overcharging someone was an idea that Ruby had thought of on a whim and oddly enough Weiss had helped with theories on what could happen if he did it, and if he should. Ultimately it was decided that he'd only perform an overcharge if there was sufficient reason, and Jaune surmised that now would be the best chance to field test the technique. If anyone asked what had possessed him to do it, all he'd be able to give them in reply would be a shrug and a casual 'I dunno felt like the only option?' And get an exasperated look in return.
"Are you sure you want to try that now!?" Blake hissed at him like an irritated cat and kicked a flailing puppet-man away with a dash more force than necessary. "We've never even tried that in safe conditions!"
Jaune chuckled nervously at that as he bonked a puppet-man, that was pawing at him clumsily, on the head with his shield. "We're out of options and time, unless we can get to Le Ripper and get these suppressants into him in time without the overcharge, I just don't see another way with us being this tired from fighting the hoard, plus being low on Aura as we are, we won't have to worry about limbs blowing off from internal Auric pressure."
He said the words mechanically as the pressure was kept on them by the puppet-men and the random strikes from Jacques Le Ripper, who'd taken to spinning around like a living evil dervish and smashing everything around him. He knew that this was a gamble and yet he reached his hand out to Blake and asked. "Do you trust me?"
Blake groaned at the corny question and, while rolling her eyes at him, surrounded them with the last of her shadow clones and clasped his wrist firmly. "Make this quick, Dork Knight, I promised Nora I'd get you home alive, if not in one piece."
Jaune closed his hand around her slender wrist and swiftly began to roll his Aura through the connection amplifying her power while he churned his own in to a cycling frenzy within his core, doubling it and compressing, doubling and compressing, and so on as much as he felt he could.
A bright gold colour shimmered on his skin as Blake's own Aura began to shimmer a deeper violet than it had the first time he'd amplified her Aura and as far as he could tell he'd reached a critical point of amplification at around 10x their original capacity of Aura. This level of amplification couldn't last for long as the power began evaporating off of their skin, it was now or never.
"Blake, go high and do your ninja-cat girl thing, send out a wave of shadow clones to clear a path. I'll tank his hits and distract him while you get behind and get him with all the sedatives and Aura suppressants we've got, that should free the victims he's throwing at us then we can get them some medical attention." Jaune summed up his plan as quickly and quietly as possible, to prevent Le Ripper from catching on. Hoping that whatever damage had been done to the mutilated Faunus man had dulled his hearing ability. Said man was currently spinning rapidly in his dervish attack and making a beeline for Jaune and Blake as they blazed with power.
Jaune let go of Blake as she made like a shadow and disappeared from sight. He then set his stance as solidly as he could and focused on shaping his Aura into an expanded version of his shield around the damaged equipment, adding in a crushed hard-light Dust crystal for extra oomf. The spinning mass of crazy and death seemed to take his actions as a challenge as it sped up in its trajectory rotating faster and faster, and then the claymore struck.
The impact forced Jaune back, his boots sparking against the ground as he took the entire force of the blow onto his Aura and shield. Spiderweb lines appeared across the entire surface that had formed, blooming out from the shield in the centre of the Aura construction. Jaune felt his arm go numb and he didn't think he could take many hits like that again. Thankfully he wouldn't have to take any more than that one strike, as that first hit he'd blocked had disrupted the spinning and stalled Le Ripper's momentum. The scattered hard-light Dust had clustered on and around his feet, locking his legs in place and slowing the madman down enough for Blake to appear from the shadows behind him. She swiftly broke the seal on the Aura suppressant and jammed the hyper injector needle into the side of Jacques' neck, there was a low pssssh sound as the contents were shot directly into his bloodstream, bypassing his defenses and locking his Aura away until it inevitably wore off.
Jacques screamed in rage as he felt his Aura fade into a dull feeling in the back of his mind and he tried to stab Blake with the three blades on his mechanical arm, rotating it 180 degrees at the elbow, only for it to instead encounter a shadow clone charged with lightning Dust which blew up in his face. Blake appeared once again, in front of him this time, where she held up and activated an aerosolizing device that contained a quick acting sedative, blasting it directly into his face in a concentrated burst.
"W-wha...? H-huh..? Ugh...Zzzzzzz." Was all he had time for, before his upper body fell forward and he fell asleep on his feet. The only reason he hadn't fallen flat on his face was the Dust sticking to his legs, but as Jaune's Aura faded back to normal and disappeared from visible sight, he slowly fell forward as the hard-light lost its effect.
"Phew! Glad that's over with, let's get these suppression cuffs on the guy before he wakes up." Jaune announced, glad that fight had been so anti-climactic and, for once, that the technical development department had created such effective anti-huntsman equipment. It did make him a bit uneasy that the department was churning out so much equipment and tools aimed at subduing huntsmen like him and his friends, but the benefits out weighed the drawbacks at the moment. His musings on the necessity of anti-huntsman technology was abruptly interrupted as a loud BOOM! Sounded out and the ruined building shook violently. The conscious occupants of the warehouse all looked over to the east wall, which now had a new hole in it that could barley be seen through the massive cloud of smoke and dust that had been kicked up by the explosion.
Through the dust kicked up burst a small, fast moving body carrying a large smoking gun, indicating the source of the explosion. Big Joe looked around, somewhat frantically, trying to find the enemy he was called to blow up, and when he couldn't locate any, he sagged in disappointment then began a silent tirade and jaunt assumed it was something along the lines of 'why did you call back up if you were just gonna hog all the action for yourselves!?', only it appeared to contain some rude gestures that indicated that he was being far less polite.
"Cool your jets, Howl Four, the Agents decided to try a risky manoeuvre to take down the main bad guy when I warned them of what you'd do if you got here and began blasting." Sabrehound chastised the small rat Faunus man for his tirade. As Blake finished tying up the enemies that weren't in need of serious medical attention, that was hopefully on the way soon, she staggered back as she felt a wave of very intense exhaustion roll over her.
"Wha?" She held the side of her head and leaned against an intact shipping crate, then tiredly glared at Jaune as he too began to feel the effects of the overcharge he'd done to their Auras. It felt like they barely had any Aura left in their bodies, less like it had been broken and more like they'd been fighting on empty for a week straight, Jaune being slightly better off due to his massive reserves but not by much. He quickly sheathed Crocea Mors into his shield, which wouldn't fold in anymore because of his recklessness, and rested it on the ground as a support rod of sorts while he tried to recover as much as possible.
There was no rest for the weary however as Sabrehound gave an order. "Agents, as soon as you can stand straight,head up and clear that overseers office over there, look's likely that's where they were keeping the important documents and the like. We'll look around down here, there's still some intact crates here that should contain something useful."
"Aye, sir! We're on it, c'mon Blake, you get the door and I clear?" Jaune responded, then turned and asked the still glaring cat-Faunus. Her frown deepened for a moment before she rolled her eyes and got up from her leaning spot with an arching stretch of her back, not caring about how lewd the stretching may have looked with her assets and choice of clothing, thankfully all the men in the group were either happily taken or just didn't see her as a viable candidate for ogling due to age difference or other factors.
"Yaawwwwwn, alright let's get moving Jaune, sooner we get this over with the sooner I get to go home and take a nap." She said bluntly and readied Gambol Shroud in pistol mode as she made her way up the steps to the small loft office. They approached slowly up the steps, Jaune clipped his shield to the shoulder mounting point on his pauldron and drew his rifle around from his back ready to breach the room. The door at the top of the staircase was a damaged, thick wooden construction, barely standing in the frame and had one bore an intricate design on its surface that was now faded and scarred. Blake approached in a way that allowed her to use the door itself as cover and reached for the handle, she nodded at Jaune, who had stopped a few steps back on the small landing and was ready to shoulder charge into the room with his shield while keeping his rifle ready to aim and fire as quickly as possible.
He nodded back to Blake and she yanked the door wide, ducking behind it briefly, allowing Jaune a clear shot into the room. The second the door was wide enough Jaune rushed in ducking his head behind his shield, he made his way into the centre of the room unscathed and looked up quickly aiming his gun at various positions. He soon stood at ease and relaxed his guard slightly, taking note that the room was empty except for an old worn down office desk with stacks of paper and folders littering its surface. Perched precariously atop one of the taller piles was what looked to be a, positively ancient looking portable computer terminal, that had a cable of all things leading to an equally ancient power generator. Seeing the old hardware placed in such a hazardous position sent fire warnings through Jaune's mind as he swiped the old machine off of the papers and pulled the charging cable out once he'd verified that the device had a self contained battery.
"What's that you've got there Jaune?" Blake said as she peeked over his shoulder at what he'd been so adamant on snatching up. "Huh? That looks like an old relic, y'know like from before Dust powered tech really took off? What's it doing here?"
Jaune just shrugged and answered with his best guess. "Dunno, this thing looked like it was old back when my great grandparents were still in diapers. There's no way they stored anything important on this thing? Right?"
As he questioned the possibility of the device holding important information, he carefully booted up the device using the conveniently labelled 'power' button located on the physical keypad, receiving a loud welcome chime from the antiquated speakers and saw a blue screen light up in front of him. Slowly the device powered up loading the desktop display which, on this system, only seemed to hold three files and a basic search engine. Of the three files on the display two looked to be zippered files and one was a recently opened video folder, the two zippered files were passcode locked but the video folder was not. Jaune wasn't really sure if he should be messing with such dated technology, that could possibly contain necessary information to tracking the mastermind behind the illegal Faunus trafficking that was going on, but his curiosity got the better of him in the end and he clicked on the video folder, he'd only watch a few minutes of one video, he moved the retro styled cursor over the top listed video labelled 'Subject trials:warning!'
Record one of The Archive of the Old One.
Date: DAY:XX. MONTH:XX. YEAR -XX .
Subject Log 01 of video record of The Archive of the Old One.
Beginning Playback...
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.
bzzt.
The screen filled with the grainy, black and white image of an old gentleman in a lab coat and what looked like a half plague mask. He was sitting in a large iron-backed throne and looking at the camera. "This is the record log of my first experiment on the one labelled as Subject One, this creature resembles us pure humans to a frightening degree. It is capable of our speech, it has high cognitive function when not sedated for the safety of the researchers and it has proven to be very difficult to harm in any form of permanent manner. Do be warned chosen of humanity, whom I presume is watching this, BE FOREWARNED! What you see now in this new fangled video record, IS. NOT. A. HUMAN! And as such any and all experimentation, despite how gruesome they may seem, is not subject to any laws noted by the pen of man. Let us proceed to view the first ever video recording of the experimentation on the first known being of a sub-species creature dubbed; Faunus by the unenlightened."
The scene changed to show the same man in the lab coat standing beside a table with another man laying, strapped upon it and without a stitch of clothing on, not that it really mattered as his body was covered by layers of caked on dirt and blood. The man on the table had extremely long, shaggy and matted blue-black hair and a wolf tail of the same colour and condition. There was an iron bar strapped in his mouth that showed signs of being warped from intense pressure. The table showed signs of being clawed and gouged, chunks of the table had been broken off and fallen to the floor of the room. Next to the table was a tray of brutal looking implements, all of which were well used, caked in blood and heavily rusted, they were all set aside by the old man in the lab coat.
"Subject one, first recorded of its kind, has shown signs of having that which sets mankind apart from the animals; Aura." The lab coated man spoke. "This has been recorded many times in the written Archives of the Old One, a record passed down through the ages by my ancestors to this day. How this is possible we have yet to discover, it has been our mission to find out the origin of this unholy phenomenon and put a stop to it."
He moved a new tray into position, this one containing slightly newer looking implements that looked to be only one or two generations more advanced than the previous ones had been. The man plucked a brutal device off the tray, it had spikes and blades poking out from random angles, it also had a thick copper banded cable connected to the handle that seemed to be transferring lightning Dust from an archaic, rudimentary crystal conversion machine. The ends of the implement sparked and popped as the man pulled a large trigger on the handle and jabbed it into Subject One's eye, there was a muffled scream of agony from the man strapped to the table and a sheen of light obscured the body of subject one.
"As we can see here there is a physical manifestation of Aura or, as some would call it, the soul of which this creature cannot have. Only humans can have a soul, also as my ancestors have recorded Aura is not the soul, but the remnants of our blood right, magic." The man spoke over the pained moans of Subject One. "Somehow, someway this heathen beast has stolen the blood right of human kind and utilised it to change its biological state to more closely resemble mankind. We have yet to discover the means of which they have been able to do this. It is bad enough that we, the Pure, need fight for our existence against the creatures of Grimm but now we must find a way to end these animals that have taken human shape."
Subject One's Aura cracked and the tool was jammed into his eye, popping it with a sizzle and an even louder scream, until the sound stopped as the device entered his brain. There was an even larger flare of light and a gear like shape manifested around the body and began rotating. The still body began to twitch and heal, the tool being forced out of the socket.
"As you no doubt can see, this, Subject One, has a massive reservoir of magic, enough so that it can heal even from mortal injury. Although this healing ability can only be utilised to its fullest extent approximately once per month. Many medical resources have been wasted on keeping Subject One alive long enough for its magic to come into effect. This is all I have for now, as an introduction to the Order of the Pure, a guardian of humanity and a servant of whichever of my descendants has taken the title of The Old One, be warned, these humanised animals are dangerous, especially Subject One, if Subject one ever gets loose, do not engage unless you are willing to lay down your life for the cause. What you shall see next shall serve as example of what is likely to happen to you if you encounter a free Subject One. Beware the wolf of calamity; Fenrir..."
BZZZZZT...
The scene changed to a view of a sealed white room, Subject One was huddled in the centre of the room and was rocking back and forth on his haunches. He seemed to be zoned out and unfocused, not paying attention to the surroundings around him until there was a twitch atop his head in the shaggy mess of matted hair, that indicated he had Faunus ears buried in the dirty tresses. Alertness filled his body suddenly as it appeared had heard something from out of the frame, there was no audio coming through the speakers of the old terminal so the only indication that there had been any sound was the movement of the ears on his head. In the white cell room there was a flickering light that lasted for a few seconds and the Faunus man's ears twitched rapidly showing that there was an alarm of sorts going off nearby.
Subject One's head jerked up and looked towards something out of frame, he became agitated and his hackles raised, he bared his teeth in a feral snarl as a group of men in prisoner garb were shoved into the cell with him. The men were all holding some form of rudimentary weapon and they milled around aimlessly for a moment before they appeared to receive some form orders and the raised their weapons towards the man in the centre of the room. Then, the best way to describe what happened next was a massacre, bloody and gruesome, with the only one left standing by the end being the Faunus man standing in the middle of the room and silently howling at the ceiling of the room. The scene then went black and the video ended.
Jaune and Blake stared at the screen as it went black, horrified by what they had just witnessed. They glanced at one another and back at the screen several times. Both of them didn't know what they had just seen, it just wasn't connecting in their minds.
"What...the hell?" Jaune whispered. "Who the heck was that 'Old One'? And what the hell was with that Faunus guy?"
"I-i don't know... that was all kinds of messed up, and theres... Ohm help us, thousands of videos in that file alone.." Blake responded shakily. She covered her mouth with her hands and looked ill as she stepped back shaking her head subtly from side to side.
He swallowed dryly and carefully folded the lid of the device down, and carefully packed it into an evidence case. He mechanically began packing the papers and documents into the rest of the cases he had, as many as he could with the few cases he had on hand in his pack. His mind raced, going over the contents of the video over and over, trying to make sense of it. Under all the grime, blood and hair the Faunus man held a striking resemblance to the man they were currently working for, but that couldn't be possible. The video was marked as being recorded hundreds if not thousands of years before the Great War, so that Faunus man couldn't be Captain Nicklaus KingsWolfe, could it?
Jaune had no clue as to what he'd just stumbled on, but one thing he did know was: he was not prepared for something like this.
A/N: So, there it is the next chapter of my travesty I call a story. Please leave a Review to let me know how it did.
A quick update on what's happening with my bio mum and the funeral stuff, as stated in the A/N at the beginning... There is no funeral for me to attend as my bitchy sister Eve is holding onto my mother's ashes and has gone non-contact with the rest of the family. There is apparently going to be some kind of reunion of the cousins, aunts and uncles being planned by one of the cousins though, so I might be able to get some closure by meeting them.
Now, moving on from the sad stuff.
What do you think of the story so far? Any thoughts on what will happen next? Let me know of anything you really want to see happen and I might just include it in the story, with a few tweets here and there to make it fit and if I do use an idea from you, please leave a name for me to give credit to. You can pm me with any ideas you want to see or try contacting me on Discord at: NicklausKingiWolfe.
I would prefer that my Fic get some reviews other than the one from 'Guest': "interesting"
I want to hear from you! Feedback is the only way I'll know if this is worth continuing long term.
Anyway, ciao for now!
sincerely.
Your friendly neighbourhood Dark Archer.