Edelweiss, Edelweiss, every morning you greet me.
Small and white, clean and bright,
You look happy to meet me.
Humming along to the melody of a lullaby, Atlesian Federal Ship Edelweiss did not do such a thing often. The song itself, a traditional Mantellian piece, had somewhat of a troubled legacy. Of course, with all forms of artful expression banned during the Great War, it meant that even simple acts such as singing were often barred entirely. This song survived those days when books and other priceless pieces of art were burned, only existing today in memory of those who defied the Kaiser and kept those traditions. It was still popular in Mantle, particularly among Faunus residents living in its slums, singing it to their children for better tomorrows.
Edelweiss knew this, for she had Faunus crew from Mantle who did something similar every so often.
"Vice Admiral, we're approaching the stolen craft, your orders?"
Shifting her azure eyes from the ground to her Captain, she allowed a frown to appear on her face. Edelweiss was the lead ship of her class, meant to bridge the gap between firepower, and the new concept of fighting wars without the use of human lives being wasted. She and her sisters were a joint venture between Atlas and the SDC, with no small amount of lobbying and other backroom deals later, the Edelweiss-class Battlecarriers were the result of that arrangement.
They were Atlas's symbol of might, showcasing their technological, military and even national prowess born from their lacklustre performance during the Faunus Wars. Similarly to herself, the other ships in her class, her sisters, were all named after flowers as well. It was to make their presence seem peaceful, 'un-aggressive' if that even could be applied to them. Carrying enough dust batteries to level any small town in minutes and a small robot army onboard each one of them was not exactly the height of peaceful intentions by her own standards.
Appearances had to be kept however, since the Atlesian Federal Navy was still technically a 'defensive' fleet in its organizational mission, though it seemed the definition of 'defence' stretched ever long these days, seeing as how she was literally next to Vale conducting police actions. Allied kingdom or not, having mixed feelings about it should have been an understatement, but who could she have complained about it to? Edelweiss, like every other ship spirit on Remnant could not interact with their crew, it had been that way since the beginning, and would remain so until either she was destroyed, or her hull scrapped.
"Get us closer, once they're within our killzone then we'll break cloud cover. Damn it, what the hell was Ironwood thinking…?"
Her Captain was not the highest ranking officer aboard her right now, it was actually Vice Admiral Gelè, accompanying them for the duration of this deployment. Wearing a white overcoat on top of her dress uniform, one could mistake her for a Schnee at a distance, though she may be one of her in-laws, her appearance was just coincidental. Despite being in her 40s, and one of the youngest Vice Admirals in the Navy, her reputation meant that there were few of her crew who didn't at least know who she was. Those who did, even for those who despised her background, had to give her a begrudging amount of respect.
The official reason given to her crew was that they were here for practice, both for foreign deployments and the eventual one by Atlas when the Vytal Festival was about to begin. Whether politics or some other reason, Atlas was going to have a presence in Vale for the duration of the festival, and she was here to ensure that they knew of any potential hiccups beforehand by doing what was essentially a 'test run'.
The real reason, of course, known only to the highest ranking officers on her was because they were the unofficial reinforcements in case an Atlesian operation in Vale needed it. Judging by the sudden change they did only half an hour ago, however, it seemed that they were needed.
"Happens all the time, The Army goes and does something, we have to clean up their mess left behind. We didn't even get the IFF data until Ironwood got involved, waste of the budget honestly."
With that, Edelweiss had to agree with her Captain. They didn't even get all the details of this assignment, something about a failed arrest and subsequent hijacking of a prototype Army airship? It sounded like something out of a military action movie, and even the Vice Admiral was about to disregard it until the call came from her Niece, who from the scroll video call to them, looked as if she was just put through the metaphorical dust cannon and shot out of it.
" Eugh ...I'm going to wring Ironwood's neck when we get back to Atlas, with his prototype in our hangars. What do you think, should we let our own engineers examine it before giving it back to him?"
Her Captain shot her a sly grin, despite being nearly at the age of retirement, he still found the humour for most things in life easily. "He never specified we needed to return it in one piece, Vice Admiral."
It was an open secret neither branch particularly liked each other, and to be completely honest, Edelweiss shared that sentiment most of the time, as did all other ships in the Atlesian Navy. Oh well, perhaps this incident would knock them down a peg or two, they were getting a bit too vocal during the latest budget allocations after all.
"Ma'am, they're about to be within range of main batteries."
A bridge officer called out from his console, Edelweiss could see that he was correct. The target was within range, right in their killzone. Even if it tried to change course immediately, they would not be able to outrun the first salvo regardless.
"Alright, let's clean up Ironwood's mess. Get me a line of contact with it."
Edelweiss's gravity dust engines whirred to life, as output from it went towards her back thrusters. Feeling a slight shake from the bridge, she was moving ahead, her bow, or at least what she considered one, pierced the cloud cover they were in. Moments later, most of her hull was through it, directly above their target with all her main forward batteries locked onto its hull. In other circumstances, she would have stopped to look at the crimson Forever Fall below, this kind of greenery was something not so easily seen in Solitas.
"This is Vice Admiral Gelè of the AFS Edelweiss, surrender your dropship or be blown out of the sky."
As far as threats went, it was up there in the believability category. Just for show, her main batteries glowed brightly with fire dust lining its laser barrels, showing the commandeered airship that they meant it. As expected, the stolen airship stopped mid air, hovering in place after the Vice Admiral had made their presence known.
For a couple dozen seconds, they didn't receive any communication back, and the growing sense of unease began permeating across the bridge. Stolen airship or not, Edelweiss and her crew probably didn't want to blow the damn thing up if they could help it, capture was preferred over the alternative, and nor were they the trigger-happy Army.
"Damn it! Is this thing on? Hello?"
A voice then came back through the other end, in a somewhat frantic, yet still cocky and arrogant tone. Her Captain and the Vice Admiral immediately frowned, who was this jokester piloting that thing?
"Identify yourself, now!"
"Woah there, easy does it, I'm Roman Torchwick, might have heard of me, notorious criminal in Vale, master heister and an all round gentleman-"
The scowl on Vice Admiral Gelè turned into a glare as she heard this 'Torchwick' ramble on. With a snarl, she replied back, shutting the other end up immediately.
"I do not care, you will surrender your ship by landing in our hangar, or else we will annihilate you and everyone else on board. Do you understand?"
If looks could kill, the glare from the Vice Admiral would have turned the stolen airship into molten metal by now. Actually, there was a chance it would end up like that, courtesy of her main batteries anyways.
"Ah, you might not want to do that actually. Say hello to your CO, Ensign!"
"DON'T SHOOT! I'M ENSIGN ROZA ANIKANOV OF THE DESIGN MINISTRY! I WAS PART OF THE INVESTIGATION TEAM!"
The other voice that came through, belonging to a young woman was much more panicked and frightened, and evidently, her Captain and the Vice Admiral recognized who she was.
"Roza? Shit, isn't she…" Her Captain began asking, but trailed off, allowing Gelè to finish for him.
"Admiral Anikanov's daughter…fuck this just got complicated…"
Admiral Anikanov…if she remembered correctly, the old Admiral, who served during the Faunus Wars was retired now. Edelweiss didn't even know she had a daughter, much less the one being kidnapped on that stolen airship. Neither of them had the chance to respond before they got another message.
"Well, we were just going to let her down at a settlement nearby…but since you're so graciously offering to blow us up, I don't think we're going to do that anymore, isn't that right?"
"GET IT AWAY FROM ME! GET ME OUTTA HERE, I DON'T WANT MY FACE EATEN OFF! С ука, блять!"
Wait, did she say 'I don't want my face eaten off'?! What did she mean by that?!
"Ma'am! We're detecting…a large ship, nearly our size in the target!" The same bridge officer from earlier called out again, this time confusing everyone there. Squinting hey eyes at it, Edelweiss found that he was correct, her radar was showing a target nearly her length where the dropship was. However, a quick visual analysis confirmed the opposite was true, there was no battleship there, so what exactly was her radar picking up?
"Damn it, must be from the prototype, guess they did figure out how to use it after all…" Her Captain cursed, the Army was fielding all sorts of new equipment these days, they were just made aware of a new line of Knight androids when they were loaded onto Edelweiss. In hindsight, she shouldn't have been surprised at something as mundane as radar spoofing technology, though why did they make themselves have an even larger signature?
"Doesn't matter, they haven't left yet so that means they're still planning to do something."
"Vice Admiral? Do we open fire?"
To Edelweiss's surprise, she immediately shook her head. "I'd rather save one of our own than save Ironwood's precious prototype. Bastards must have been gunning for it in the first place…why the hell is the army losing so much equipment these days?"
Though the last part was muttered out, barely larger than a whisper, Edelweiss knew she was referring to the theft of another prototype, this time land-based. A 'Paladin', or one of its prototypes at least, had been lost somehow during transportation; she overheard the Vice Admiral and her Captain discussing it earlier. As usual, the Navy was not notified until a week had passed, in vain hopes of somehow intercepting it before it left Solitas. They never found it again, and it was made even worse by the Army sharing scant few details about what it actually was. Though to be fair, it wasn't as if the Navy told them their top-secret new technologies either, mutual distrust, essentially.
"We're not going to let them leave. We have already notified other escort cruisers in the area, we'll stall until they arrive, then we'll see if they want to negotiate again."
A wait-and-see approach then, not an entirely bad idea considering they had a hostage.
"Ma'am! A dozen signatures directly above us!" Again, the radar officer called out from his post, this time showing a dozen, much smaller signatures, around the size of standard Atlesian airships for only a couple of soldiers. Vice Admiral Gelè had an unamused look on her face as she responded.
"More radar spoofing, if that's the best an Army prototype can do-"
"VISIBLE CONTACT!"
A shout from the Starboard Lookout tore through the bridge, causing many officers to snap to where the young lookout was pointing. Above them, slowly, but surely, several shapes under the light of the moon began approaching closer…and closer…
"Dive bombers!" The Quartermaster called out from his station, having used his own binoculars to get a clearer image. A moment later, as they got within a few kilometres of herself, Edelweiss could see it as well. Airships-no, aircraft, with a propeller weirdly stuck to its front, in a blue color scheme with a star-themed roundel. Though the most important part she noticed, was the bombs they were carrying underneath their fuselage.
Her Captain leapt into action, the shout from him refocusing the bridge from the shock. "Evasive manoeuvres! Hard left thrusters, activate point defence, concentrate fire above! We need to make ourselves as small of a target!"
It was the Naval Academy answer. Though it was seldom taught these days, Edelweiss knew it was the textbook method to defend against a dive bombing attack. She just never thought it would apply to her, until now. The entire bridge, and subsequently ship jerked, as the helmsman gripped the thruster throttle with his dear life, Edelweiss continuing to see the dots on the radar approach ever closer…
She began hearing her limited point defence cannons fire directly above them, hundreds of high calibre explosive rounds shot directly into the night sky.
"Sir! They're too fast, these guns are still programmed for Grimm!" The gunnery officer shouted from her post. Automated cannons still saw them as flying Nevermores or some other aerial Grimm, who were usually a lot slower than a dive bomber. Rounds were flying past the dive bombers, and the speed did not help with the automated leading that was shooting where they were .
"Reset them then!" Her Captain ordered, but Edelweiss knew better.
"We're going to have to bring them offline to do it!" Came the inevitable response, which was an issue of having a lot of things automated, when it worked it was flawless, in other circumstances, however…
"Why did we let my Brother's company design our ships again…?" The Vice Admiral swore under her breath, cursing Jacque Schnee for a myriad of things that would have made the front page of celebrity gossip magazines for weeks.
"Shit, too late! Everyone brace for impact!" Her Captain ordered, and everyone immediately grabbed onto something sturdy, whether it was their console or a handrail, they expected to be hit by a near-dozen bombs directly on them. Edelweiss froze, a lump in her throat, all she could do was stare at the dive bombers now just on top of them. Wondering if this was how she was going to die, due to archaic aircraft that still used propellers, her breath hitched as she closed her eyes for the inevitable explosions.
…
…
…
I'm still alive?
Tentatively, she opened her eyes, only to be greeted by an intact bridge, moreso, her entire hull was intact. There was not a single point of damage to be found anywhere on her. She was not the only one bewildered, as even her Captain and the Vice Admiral were under a similar amount of confusion.
"They…missed?" Gelè asked, to which her Captain responded by shaking his head.
"No, that was a perfect attack, they didn't drop their bombs." From out their window, they saw the aircraft, now flying all around them, while still dodging their point-defence cannon fire with extreme acrobatics. Just looking at it made Edelweiss numb from thinking about how many G forces were being subjected to the poor pilots.
"What the Oum's good name are they doing?!" Edelweiss wanted to shout the same thing as well, if anything, it seemed like they were distracting them, simply just trying to buy them time-
"Ma'am! The target has moved! It's flying past us into cloud cover!" As soon as he finished saying that, the stolen prototype flew past their bridge and into the very same clouds they used as cover.
"Damnit! Lock with missiles, fire on my command!" The order came from the Vice Admiral, who looked like she was kicking herself for forgetting about their main target.
"Arming! Searching for target…n-no signature found! We've lost them!" Her missile officer called out from his station, which was then added on by her radar officer.
"Radar signature is gone too, ma'am! I think they activated stealth-"
"IFF tracking!"
"We're the only friendlies in the area, the closest allied ship is all the way in Vale, ma'am."
"Turn this ship around! Vector an intercept course-"
"Stop, we can't catch up with one of those things if James wasn't bullshitting about its capabilities. Less so if they actually managed to activate stealth." The orders her Captain were about to give were cut off, leaving a stern faced Vice Admiral Gelè to sigh loudly. Those dive bombers that had 'attacked' them earlier have also disappeared, though with her radar still being able to track them, they seemed to be dispersing into a dozen different directions. They were just one ship, and were definitely not able to keep up with them at that speed.
"Contact the other cruisers in the area, order them to cancel their tours, and have them scour the area behind us just in case. We're going to maintain course for Vale."
"Vice Admiral?"
"That's an order, Captain. It's no use chasing after them now, we have better things to do. I will contact Specialist Schnee about this myself. No one is to update command until we get to Vale, understood?"
She left before her Captain could get another word in, making her way out of the bridge and into the hallway leading up to it. Harrowing near-death experience aside, something about those dive bombers was oddly familiar, for some reason she felt a vague sense of Deja Vu when seeing them. Suddenly remembering where she thought she'd seen them, not everyone aboard her right now was a member of her crew, she had one civilian onboard her right now.
Vice Admiral Gelè had brought along her younger Niece on board as well, something about her seeing Vale for higher education? She didn't understand, but something odd about her made Edelweiss intrigued. What was her name again? Weiss Schnee, if she remembered correctly, for some reason, felt like one of her sisters. But that was impossible, she was a human, the Vice Admiral's Niece, so she put aside that thought, treating it as a symptom of her not talking to anyone else for an extended period. She had a pet eagle of sorts with her as well, though that bird felt like she was looking at an entire squadron. Still, like Weiss herself, she dismissed it as delusions.
Realizing that what just happened on the ship must have been a traumatic experience for a civilian like her, suddenly being jerked in a certain direction and with shells exploding everywhere could not have been anything peaceful or relaxing. Manifesting herself in the officer's quarters area, she decided to just peek at the poor thing, not that she could have done anything if she was under duress-
"Yes, yes, I know, you had to crawl through the vents, but think about what you accomplished! Wasn't it exciting, being able to deploy an entire squadron against someone shooting back at you this time?"
What greeted her was not the sight of a scared civilian, but an angel. No, literally, unlike the Weiss Schnee she had seen a day ago when she first boarded, she was wearing an entirely different dress, though still white, it was now much more eccentric, almost like her own clothing actually. Though the most striking part of her was probably the two literal angel wings sticking out of her back, she met a Mistralian airship once that had similar animal features, but this was…
"You're a Faunus?!" For the first time in a while, Edelweiss had said something out loud. She didn't think too much about it, after all, the only people who could hear her were-
"Hm? Oh, you're here! Finally decided to visit me, have you?" Dumbfounded, Edelweiss could only continue staring at the young girl turning around, petting her pet eagle while she looked directly at the Battlecarrier, almost as if she could see her-
"Well, aren't you going to say something, Edelweiss? I've been waiting for you to come talk to me! You know, Solitude has told me great things about you-"
Solitude?! The museum ship Solitude?!
"You're…You're…"
She smiled, it was a warm, radiant smile that befitted her appearance. "Just like…you? Well, I suppose introductions are in order. I am Weiss Schnee, or Yorktown, whichever you prefer, of the Yor-Essex class aircraft carriers, may the most resplendent dawn rise over the darkest night. So…"
Tapping the tip of her two index fingers together sheepishly, she gave her an awkward smile as she rubbed the back of her head, like Rosen , her sister, when she had done something wrong.
"I…might have caused you to…oh how do I put this nicely…? Let them…escape…?"
"What."
"I see, I will let the General know of this development-"
"N-no, Aunt Gelè, he has not sunk his claws deep into me-I'm not joining the Navy! I like it as a Specialist! Look, I need to report back to him now, see you in Vale soon."
Qrow, though still blinking at the searing his avian eyes took from earlier still had his hearing working correctly. Shuffling over to where Winter was being treated at on an ambulance door, he couldn't help but form a shit eating grin on his face, one that screamed 'I told you so'. Honed from years of doing that to Raven while they were still on Team STRQ.
Winter, though bruised and much worse looking for wear, still managed to get an insult out while acknowledging his presence. "Shut it, I don't want to hear it from someone who didn't even make it to the fight."
Qrow snorted, based on Winter's conversation just now however, it seemed like they really did get away. So the Navy was just as useless as the Army was, somehow that made him feel a lot better.
"Oh, so we're treating that like my fault now? Who was the one who told me to go across the damn docks? I ain't seeing anyone else who said that, but you."
"Eugh…"
Winter couldn't even be bothered to give him a proper response, probably cause he was at least partially right about the whole thing. Sitting down next to her, he offered her his flask, which was firmly rejected with a look of disgust from her.
"It doesn't have STDs."
"I'd rather not take my chances."
Qrow didn't respond either, instead downing the rest of it in one go.
"What a shitshow, how many did we even get?" He referred to how many White Fang they actually arrested, out of what seemed to be dozens of them in this operation, they only managed to arrest a handful, the rest having scattered to the wind. It was a lot of effort on their part, but the actual results? Nothing substantial, all they did was make the Fang relocate the operation to somewhere else, most of the Dust they smuggled in still under their possession.
"Not enough, where even were you?! I imagined you would have caught them as they were escaping, not find me after the battle was over."
"I got pre-occupied, only saw the ship take off when I was done. Too late by then, rotten luck I guess." It was an excuse, but one that probably made sense when factoring in his semblance.
"Rotten luck…who would believe such a thing? Argh!" In a moment of heated anger, Winter craned her neck a bit too high, before the wound forced her to return to normal. When Qrow initially found her, she really was in a sorry state, her Knights mangled and broken beyond repair, a burning, partially submerged Bullhead on the pier she dropped on. Though it didn't compare to Winter herself, Qrow saw huntsmen being run over by Boarbatusks coming out looking better than she did.
"Take it easy, let your Aura do the work for you."
" Tch, easy for you to say-wait, Hutten, she didn't have Aura."
If Qrow was drinking something, he might have choked on it. What did she mean by Hutten having no Aura? She had a semblance, which meant she had an Aura, did Winter hit her head on the ground too hard?
"Stop looking at me like I'm insane! I'm positive, she didn't have Aura at all."
"...Yeah, sure. Maybe your eyes weren't working straight then-"
"My eyes were fine then! I stabbed her in the gut with my side sword-"
She what?!
"And she came out of it having bent my tip, it was like stabbing into solid steel. Or at least, trying to."
Qrow still looked at her sceptically, which made her eject her side sword from her sabre, and much to his surprise, it was indeed, bent at the tip. A pretty big bend too, exactly like stabbing into a solid chunk of steel-
"She didn't activate her Aura once during the fight, I'm sure of it."
Then where did her serpent summon come from then?
Deciding that dealing with this shit could be for another day, he simply sighed and nodded. "Sure, whatever you say. Anyways, you've seen her up close, anything else we can add about her appearance?"
Though he only got a few details from her about the fight so far, it seemed that Hutten had the strength to completely overpower Winter, even going so far as to choke and lift her with one hand. Wasn't she shorter than either them by a significant margin?
"Nothing that isn't already in the few images we have-wait, no, she had horns and-HER EYES!"
He raised an eyebrow at her, what was so special about them? It was welcome to be sure, but not exactly a huge deal.
"They were silver! It glowed when she was fighting me-"
Qrow coughed violently, he choked on his saliva as he rounded on Winter with wide and wild eyes. "Y-You sure?"
"I would not joke about something like this, Qrow. That was a distinctive feature she had, they glowed as she stared at me…like…damn it. We should probably mark her age down as well, she looked much younger than we had initially guessed."
No, that was too much of a coincidence, but there was absolutely no way in hell-
Summer?
No, that couldn't…then what was the other option?
"Excuse me, gotta make a few calls. Make sure Jimmy knows of what happened today, like it's gonna change anything…"
"Wait, Qrow, we aren't done here-QROW!" He ignored Winter's shouting behind his back. Quickly moving to an area where there could be no eavesdroppers, bad luck or not, he dialled a saved number on his phone, every moment the ringtone rang, the more anxious he became.
Calm down, she ate dinner with those two just now, it was probably a coincidence, a big, fat coincidence…
Despite telling that to himself over and over again, however, he still could not feel at ease unless he had actual confirmation. When it came to something as important as Silver Eyes, it paid to be careful.
Finally, the number on the other side connected, and he was treated to a very groggy-sounding Yang.
"H-Hello? Uncle Qrow? It's like two in the morning, why are you calling me right now? Are you drunk dialling again?"
He ignored that baseless accusation, there were more pressing matters right now. "Hey Firecracker, could you do me a solid right now?"
"If this is about a date gone wrong, I swear I'm gonna make Ruby give you Natto on rice for breakfast…"
"Actually, it's about Ruby. Could you go and check if she's still asleep? Carefully, don't want to wake her up."
He was covering his bases, so that only Yang was the one mad at him later on.
"Ugh, I still think you're drunk but okay…you know tomorrow's Saturday, right? I wanted to sleep in…"
Qrow didn't respond. Instead, he waited for Yang to get up and check on Ruby. Pacing back and forth in anticipation, he heard the creak of a door from the other end of the call.
"Uh…that doesn't look right. R-Ruby? Y-you in here?" Yang was whispering, but Qrow felt his heart drop as he stood still.
"U-Uncle Qrow? Ruby isn't on her bed…and her window's open…oh Oum…the trolley…"
"Yang? Yang?! Snap out of it, this isn't like that, Ruby's not gone, she's-" Qrow tried to get Yang's attention again before she could remember that incident. No matter how long it had passed, whenever Yang saw anything resembling the 'trolley' of some sort, the results were not so great, so much so that Qrow and Tai had to physically bury the damn thing just so Yang was 'sure' it was gone. Now however, with Yang's tendency to be protective of her…
"It's…It's happening again! DAD! DAD! WAKE UP! Ruby's gone!" Yang was shouting now, Tai undoubtedly waking up to it. This kind of scenario was one the three of them secretly dreaded. Ruby staying out late at Vale or Patch was something they didn't mind too much as long as she kept in contact with them, letting them know when she came back so they could escort her from the port. However, this was different, because Ruby was by herself, out of the house in the part of Patch where Grimm were known to roam at night. Needless to say, Yang's imagination was probably running wild right now.
"Yang! Calm down-Hello?!" The call was ended. Knowing them, they were going to be racing out of the house to flip every square inch of Patch until they found her, and if that didn't work, they were going to go beyond.
Qrow however, realized how much deeper this rabbit hole just got. "I fucking hate my semblance."
AN:
I'm looking for a beta reader! For either this fic or my other fics in general, if you are interested please shoot a DM over to me on FF net witha short 150 word paragraph explaining what genres you like to read and any relevant writing/reading experience you may have.
A reviewer called this a 'crack fic' recently on FFnet. Honestly not sure how to feel about that. There's definitely a humorous element to it sure, but a crack fic? It's not that far gone, and compared to other crack fics, this barely qualifies, if at all. Anyways, no Ruby POV this chapter, tried to make her the primary one, but it didn't feel right. Generally speaking, the pace of the fic is now picking up as most of the background has been established, so expect the throttle to be turned up as we head into what Ruby and her gang does next.
Heh. Her 'gang'.
Happy Chinese New Year everyone, hope the red packets you get in the latest event gives you lots of gems this year.
Be civil in the comments below.