Ilia leaned forward slightly as she continued to drive her weaponized snowmobile across the icy plains. She could see Rust in the distance and hear the muffled fleet of Aurora's Cradle thundering along behind her through her insulated earmuffs. There were occasional check-ins over the attached earpiece inside of the fuzzy cups, but beyond that, she was largely left to her thoughts as she approached the city of Mantle. The weight of being chosen to lead the attack and save the city was heavy upon her shoulders, but somehow, she was no longer worried. Somehow, everything felt like it was coming together, and she had a definite purpose and aim. Ilia was days away from becoming the hero she felt like she could never be.
She was also one call from almost having her resolve entirely broken.
The sudden buzzing in her earpiece broke the faunus' focus almost immediately. She had been in the zone, running through every type of grimm she had ever seen in her mind and planning out how to engage them. Ilia's adrenaline was running wild and she was ready for anything… or so she thought.
"Yeah?" Ilia asked into the microphone curving down from the earmuffs and in front of her mouth.
"…Miss Amitola?" came a familiar voice. "It's Jacques Schnee. I'm tracking your position, and I have an update for you."
"Yeah, you'd better be," Ilia said icily. "What's the update? I'm assuming Marrow's team landed?"
"They did, yes," the man confirmed. "They're engaging a pack of goliaths as we speak, and… apparently Weiss is handling supply drops for them. There's a massive hole in the perimeter of the city not far from Rust that we managed to see using General Ironwood's drones. That's your best bet for getting into the city, a-"
"Got it. Thanks," Ilia snapped, getting ready to disconnect the call.
"Wait, if you would," Jacques replied. "Please?"
Ilia's hand hovered over the earpiece as she continued to drive forward at high speed. She had never expected to hear that word come from Jacques Schnee unless the man was begging for his life. It was enough to give her pause.
"…what do you want?" Ilia asked, already regretting the decision to engage the man.
There was a long pause in which Ilia narrowed her eyes, staring down the abandoned houses she was rapidly approaching. She had half a mind to disconnect the call and focus solely on the mission, until Jacques spoke up once again. The man sounded different, as though he, too, was hesitant to continue the conversation.
"I… did some remote digging through the archives. There was a pair of Amitolas working in my mines, over a decade ag-"
"Are you fucking serious?" Ilia asked, her voice immediately filling with rage as she twisted the throttle hard, causing a burst of speed as she thundered through the center of Rust. "What the fuck is this!? Are you acting like you didn't know!? Have you paid any attention to anything I've said!?"
"I… believe you may have said something earlier, or perhaps one of your friends, but I…" Jacques trailed off.
"You're what?" Ilia asked, clenching her teeth. "Are you suddenly sorry? Or are you a fucking asshole? Or both? Why would you bring this up now? Are you just trying to piss me off to get me killed?"
"N-No, I…" Jacques started, letting out a heavy sigh as he tried to collect his thoughts. "I… the first two, I suppose. Ilia, you have to understand that all of my work takes place in an office in the mansion high above Mantle, disconnected entirely from the city and surrounding mines. I've barely seen the places at all, and interacting with the workers… that isn't something I often did. They… I didn't really…"
"You didn't see them as people," Ilia finished for him. "You didn't interact with them, so it was like they weren't even real. All the faunus you abused, got killed with your negligence, exploited, and borderline enslaved were just numbers, and so long as your number, profit, went up, you didn't give a fuck. Not until I put a fucking gun to your head. You still don't care, and no amount of pleading or awkward calls is going to convince me otherwise. Fuck off, Jacques. You killed my parents and made me into what I am now."
"…what you are now doesn't seem so bad to me," Jacques tried. "You're saving Remnant…"
"Fuck you, old man," Ilia retorted immediately. "You don't know me, and you never will. What is this? Did Whitley put you up to apologizing or some shit? This is the most pathetic attempt at making amends I've ever heard."
"Whitley had nothing to do with it," Jacques answered. "This is just… I haven't slept since arriving in the Cradle. I've been doing a lot of thinking about… well, everything. What truly matters. Given that everything may be coming to an abrupt end, I'm beginning to… I don't know. I think I regret the path I chose in life."
"You think you regret it?" Ilia asked incredulously. "What, all that lien you made making it hard to commit to admitting you're one of the worst people on Remnant?"
"I'm going to be honest with you, I don't know what it is that's making me feel like maybe it wasn't all bad. It isn't the money. That… none of that means anything right now. It's… not even Whitley, or Weiss, or… my family has nothing to do with it, either. I think it's the idea that everything I did led me to being here right now, helping to do something that actually matters. Something that could help fight this… Salem woman. Nothing else could be more important."
"So that's what this is. Your ego getting a boost," Ilia explained, more to herself than Jacques. She passed by the last building in Rust, putting herself very near Mantle and the rising smoke. "You want the credit for having contributed from your little desk chair while we're out here risking our lives. You're proud of the fact that you're involved because of all the shit you pulled, and the glory you think you might get afterward. I've said it a couple times, but I'll say it again. Fuck you, Jacques. I don't even know why you called. I can see the hole in the wall from here."
"I'm not sure either. I think you may be right, Ilia. Maybe it's just the momentary excitement and promise of eventual recognition. I… don't think it is, but that would make sense, for how I've lived my life. Still… I do want to just… I know it means nothing. I know that they're still just names on paper and a small photo or two, but… I'm sorry about your parents, for what it's worth. I'll try to find some way to m-"
"Fuck. You," Ilia said with a sense of finality as she disconnected the call. She could feel tears freezing against her cheeks as she closed her eyes for a moment. Thundering footsteps echoed behind her, and she craned her neck over her shoulder to look for the source of the noise. "The hell…?"
The customized Atlesian mech from the garage was sprinting along beside her, Moss barely visible within the chassis. He was looking at her as he gestured to his ear, only for another call to buzz through Ilia's earmuffs.
"Hey kid, you good? You got way ahead of everyone for a second there."
"I'm good," Ilia answered with a sniffle. "Just… fuck Jacques Schnee. That's all."
"Fuck Jacques Schnee," Moss echoed as he kept pace with Ilia's vehicle. "I can get behind that, but uh… any reason in particular right now? Or do you n-"
"Don't want to talk about it," Ilia answered before Moss could ask. "Head in the game. Let's kill some grimm."
"Let's kill some grimm," Moss agreed. "See you inside. Looking forward to seeing you in action!"
Ilia ended the call and sniffled once more before eyeing up a slanted piece of fallen rubble. It was the perfect ramp for the kind of stupid action movie style entrance she wanted at the moment. All that was left was to crank the throttle to full speed as she aimed for the broken wall.
She could only hope that there was an entire field of grimm for her to take her anger out on upon arrival.
Roman guided the vehicle to a stop a good twenty feet from the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea. The flying grimm had continued out over the water, rapidly disappearing as Nora unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over the center console to rummage in the back seat.
"We have binoculars somewhere in here?"
"Should be a pair, yeah," Roman confirmed as he squinted, keeping his eye on the disappearing speck. "Still going in a straight line, almost like it's being remote-controlled. It's acting more like a drone than a living creature…"
"It basically is a drone," Nora reminded as she unzipped a promising looking duffel bag and began to rummage. "Grimm aren't alive. Not the same way we are, anyway."
"Doesn't really matter," Roman offered as he took out a cigarette from his tactical vest, followed by a lighter. "It's just…creepy. Where the hell could it be going? What's more important to Salem than the Relic in Sanus? It still makes no sense that Astrid could buy us several weeks at the drop of a hat right after an all-out invasion…"
"It's definitely a smokescreen for something," Nora agreed as she leaned back into the front seat holding a pair of binoculars and a folded paper. She brought the lenses up to her eyes and took a moment to locate the grimm, finding it to be flying straight just as Roman had said. "Still the same course. Still the same speed. There are a few more farther out flying with exactly the same trajectory. That is creepy…"
"Well… let's figure out where it's headed," Roman suggested as he took the folded map from Nora's lap and began to spread it open. "I think we're about… here?"
Nora lowered the binoculars and leaned over to where Roman had settled his finger on the Sanus coast. She wracked her brain to try to piece together their general path out to the sea, and found that she agreed with him.
"I think so, yeah. Which means if the grimm is flying that way, it's headed for…"
Roman traced his finger along the grimm's flight path. There was a long stretch of ocean that went far to the north before hitting another land mass.
"…the Land of Darkness," Roman said solemnly. "Home, if you want to call it that. There's no way Salem's just gonna sit on her ass surrounded by her minions for two months. She's doing something out there. Something that requires every grimm in Sanus to get done… and it's not like we can just head out there and check. Even sending a drone might break the truce and fuck us over."
"So, what?" Nora asked, looking to the man for guidance. "We just wait? Prepare for the inevitable attack? She took back the dragon, Roman. She probably could've unfrozen it at any time and had it attack Beacon while we were weak. Whatever she's doing, there's a definite plan going on… and it feels like she's toying with us."
"…I don't know," Roman said warily. "She could be, or… this could be it. Some final move of desperation after the failure up in Mantle. We've been playing keep away with the Relics pretty effectively, and this has been going on for ages. I get the feeling it's less toying with us and more… moving to end it. Whatever she's doing, I think we're seeing the signs of everything coming to a close. Maybe sooner than we thought."
"…I don't like that," Nora said as she raised the binoculars, only to find the grimm too far away to see anymore. "I don't like that at all…"
Author's Note:
Maybe the end will come sooner than we think…
-RD
