"How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?"
- Keyser Soze, The Usual Suspects
"I won't tell you a thing." the man Cinder held under her blade swore.
"That's funny." Cinder mused, "I don't think I asked you anything."
"Councilor Gott!" one of the nearby security personnel called in distress as Cinder slid her blade through the man's chest.
"This is what you called us in to help with?" Hazel seemed annoyed, quite literally swatting aside the security guard that had spoken. "Civilians?"
Cinder rolled her eyes, angling her blade downwards so that the body skewered on it could slide off. "I needed Watts' help to deal with all of their automatic defenses. You're just here as a show of strength."
Hazel grunted, prying a nearby sign from the ground and throwing it into a group of security rounding the corner. "I'm not a show pony, Fall. I have better things to do."
"I somehow doubt that." she replied dryly, manifesting a fireball and tossing it at the now downed clump of security, lighting them ablaze to an orchestra of screams. "You heard the mistress' orders, she understands as I do how valuable of an asset this Perseus is. If we help him win this spat, he'll only grow more valuable."
Hazel scoffed, dusting himself off. "If only you showed any ability to gain for our cause from this Perseus, I might be inclined to believe you."
Cinder's response was a cruel smile. "Are we not in the midst of a Remnant-wide war, Hazel? Are we not experiencing the greatest undoing humanity has had since the Great War? Are we not actively tearing down one of Ozpin's staunchest allies? I think we're benefitting from this arrangement plenty. Besides," Cinder's smile widened as she turned to look at the spire that dominated the center of the floating island. "There's something else we'll be earning from this little excursion."
"They just had to throw away our element of surprise." Winter snipped, cursing the distraction teams. The plan had been made on the assumption the place would be crawling with soldiers, not… this.
Tortuga shrugged. "Hey, this is still much better than expected. This place is basically empty."
Winter looked up and down the corridor. It went on for as long as she could see, and according to their map it was the main hallway for this section of the base. Other than the squad of soldiers lying at their feet, it was empty.
"I wonder why that is." Winter mused, continuing her urgent jog down the hallway, periodically stumbling to press a hand to the wall to keep her stable with all the constant shaking from the bombing occuring outside.
"So impatient." Tortuga rolled her eyes, following after at a slightly more sedate pace.
Tortuga did not like running.
According to her senior (and technically the one in charge of the mission) cardio was 'the enemy of progress'. Winter begged to differ, but apparently in this case even Tortuga understood the importance of haste. Every second they waited was potentially a life lost.
They couldn't have been running for more than a minute after their most recent skirmish when a white blade swept out of a side corridor, level with Winter's neck.
Left with next to no time to react she threw herself onto her back, awkwardly sliding under the blade and landing on her side a foot past it. Footing non-existent, weapon sheathed, back turned, Winter would have been dead if Tortuga wasn't there to force the assailant to deal with her instead of finishing her off.
As quickly as she could, Winter hurried to her feet and span around, bringing her blad to bare and thrusting a jab at her assailant's exposed back…
Only to run into a brick wall.
Leaping back, Winter watched as the wall slowly disappeared before her eyes to show what had been there before; Tortuga, facing off against the man that had attacked her. He'd apparently succeeded in grappling Tortuga off of him, — an impressive feat in and of itself — and was now stood in-between them.
"If you didn't have such clearly Mistrali features, I'd ask if you two were siblings." Tortuga quipped, settling into a boxing stance.
Winter had to take another glance at the man to see what Tortuga was talking about. He was dressed head to toe in white — white boots, white pants, white shirt, and to tie it all together a white jacket. Even his shield and the sword she'd gotten such a good look at earlier was white. He himself even had white hair and a relatively fair complexion, for an east Mistralian.
Winter's eyes narrowed to slits. She didn't think she'd ever met him and he wasn't one for the spotlight, but she was pretty sure…
"Shiro Wan." she announced to her partner.
"Don't wear it out." he quipped from behind his large shield, confirming her suspicions.
"We don't have time for this." Winter scowled, swiping her saber in a series of strikes and forming a glyph infused with fire dust in front of her. It would be far from fatal, she knew, but the goal wasn't to kill him — it was to distract him so that Tortuga could get past and they could head to their main objective. The rest of Atlas' forces could capture or kill him later. Personally, she hoped he was captured. She was pretty sure she'd heard Percy mention him fondly once or twice, and even if Winter couldn't save Percy himself the least she could do was try to keep his friend alive.
The attack launched forward and Tortuga took the opportunity to dash past him, but instead of taking cover behind his shield like Winter expected he just raised a hand towards her. A moment before the fire from the glyph would have struck his hand and Tortuga would have been out of his reach, the same wall of white bricks spanning the width of the hallway appeared to block the fire and Tortuga both.
The wall was only up for a few seconds before fading away like the last one had, revealing Tortuga on her back, cradling the upper part of her right arm.
Semblance or no, that was no normal wall. Tortuga would have bowled straight through a brick wall of that thickness, and Winter's glyph would have done a number on it as well. Instead, they'd both been brushed off.
"Sorry," he apologized insincerely, edging along the wall closer to Winter. "Can't let ya through here. Restricted area."
"Don't let him past you!" Tortuga cried out suddenly, climbing back onto her knees. "He'll make a wall!"
Winter and Shiro locked eyes for a single moment before ending it in an explosion of movement, Shiro dashing in an attempt to cover the few feet keeping her in front of him, and Winter dashing to cut him off.
But, much to Winter's relief, agility didn't seem to be his strong suit. She cut him off by what seemed to her like a mile, leaving him to skid to a halt or run into her blade.
He chose the former, but with Tortuga now on her feet his odds didn't look good.
"You've shown resilience to get to this point, but it ends here. You cannot face us both at once. Surrender or die. It's over." Winter demanded, leveling her saber at him.
"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure." he quipped, mirth sparkling in his eyes from a joke that only he understood. "I might be rusty, but I've still got a trick or two up my sleeve. If you think you can defeat me, then I invite you to try."
Winter looked past Shiro, and locked eyes with Tortuga. They shared a nod, and charged as one. Winter held her speed greatly in check — partly to synchronize her attack with her partner's, and partly to avoid the worst of it if there was suddenly a wall between her and her target. Speaking of which…
Winter kept her focus on Shiro as they both closed in, watching for… there! He began turning towards Tortuga. He'd be trying to fend her off, while keeping Winter from engaging him…
Again.
Frustratedly, Winter reeled back and lifted her saber in preparation for the wall she knew was to come. And sure enough a moment later a white-bricked wall appeared, but not as she expected it to.
Lack of agility or not, Winter had next to no time to react to Shiro's shield swinging down and behind him, jabbing into her stomach just below her ribcage and knocking the breath from her lungs. A foot away, a wall blocked Tortuga from interfering.
As Shiro followed up by swinging his blade in a heavy overhead strike, Winter haphazardly fell back and just barely managed to keep out of its path, staggered as she was.
Luckily, she managed to get enough distance between them that he dropped the wall with an annoyed grunt to reveal Tortuga waiting on the other side, fists at the ready. She lunged at him, but he was ready and his shield was in position to block the first punch. Instead of following up with another punch, the large woman's other hand grabbed onto the top of Shiro's shield and began to grapple. In response, he simply rested his blade along the grooves at the top of the shield and sliced along its rim, forcing Tortuga to let go. Winter, all the while, was busy recovering her breath.
"It's a distraction." Tortuga scowled, backing off. "He's a defensive fighter, like me. He won't get a good hit off on either of us, but he can take a hell of a beating. He's just stalling. You need to go, Winter. I'll keep him here."
Winter, recovered, struggled to think of another solution. "What if Mistrali soldiers find you? If you're distracted with him-"
"I'm good at surviving." Tortuga cut Winter off. Slowly, the metal covering her hands in the shape of gauntlets began to expand and crawl up her arms, encasing them in a protective shell. "It's what I do best. You know that. Trust me. You have everything you need, you need to get to the control room as soon as possible. For both of us. For Atlas."
Winter locked eyes with Tortuga, and they shared a nod. This was their job. Winter had to accept the risks, not just to herself but to others. Tortuga made it clear she'd accepted that risk a long time ago.
"A shame." Shiro's deadpan cut through the moment, the mirth in his voice gone. "Percy had spoken so highly of you. I tried to convince him to use your trust to target your family personally. End the war before it began. Percy refused to betray a friend. I called him hypocritical and sentimental. To think that out of all the times for me to be right…"
Winter swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. The implication wasn't lost on her.
Percy had refused to betray a friend, only to be betrayed by one in the end. To be betrayed by her.
"I can't go back." was Winter's only response. "I can't undo what I did, I can't change the past, even as recently as an hour ago. I can only move forward."
Turning her back and leaving the two to fight, Winter ran. She couldn't live in the past. If she faltered now, if she failed to make a change in Atlas, then his death will have truly been for nothing.
Pyrrha waited anxiously with Yang as her home approached. They stood on the bow, as far forward on the ship as they could get, as they had been since Kuchinashi had come into view that morning. Pyrrha shifted from one foot to the other anxiously, wishing the boat would go faster. They couldn't see much of anything from where they were, but they could hear an awful lot. The distant sound of explosions echoing from her home. It had been a long week, but the anxiety paled in comparison to knowing the battle was taking place now, just in front of them.
"Hey, we'll be there soon." Yang assured her, wrapping an arm around her friend's shoulders. "They'll hold out. I'm sure of it."
The words were empty, but Pyrrha appreciated them regardless. She shot Yang a half-hearted smile for a brief moment before returning her attention to Mistral.
Someone cleared their throat behind the two. Pyrrha kept her gaze on Mistral for a few more seconds before tearing it away to join Yang in looking at who had interrupted them.
It was the captain — Arcadius? Pyrrha forgot — who greeted them, shadows under his eyes and beard unshaven.
"This is as far as we go." he announced, "Mistral told us to stop. We stop here. You can stay here 'till the battle's over, or…" he eyed the side of the ship, towards the shore. "We have some lifeboats you could borrow."
"What?! The agreement was you take us to Mistral. This isn't Mistral." Pyrrha objected, one hand reaching to her back.
"Listen little lady, I know yer-" Yang cut him off with a quick glare, reaching over to grab Pyrrha's wrist and stop her reaching for Milo.
"Pyrrha, they were ordered to stop by Mistral, who is currently fighting a battle on its shores. If they keep going, they'll be blown out of the water. Yelling at them won't accomplish anything."
Pyrrha's breaths didn't slow, but she locked eyes with Yang and nodded once.
"Now, let's get moving. We've got a battle to crash, yeah?"
The slightest hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Pyrrha's lips for a single moment before disappearing. She nodded once more and, ignoring the ship's captain, turned to jog towards the lifeboats.
Yang and the captain shared a nod of mutual thanks, and Yang was off to follow her friend overboard.
Clover hadn't been this confused in a long time.
First, he dropped to find their target in the open, exactly where they thought he'd be, without a guard of any kind. He'd thought it was a trap at first, but they'd engaged and defeated the target with no problem.
Well, no problem wasn't quite correct. It was frankly embarrassing how long he'd managed to fend them off, considering the lack of any formal education or semblance use. As a kicker, the target seemed to be almost blowing them off, making quips and neglecting to follow up on advantages.
But it was over. Clover had immobilized the target, Tortuga distracted him, and Vine dealt the finishing blow.
But Clover didn't want to take any chances. They'd already been surprised once, and he did not want to run any risk that they'd be caught off guard and one of them were injured or, God forbid, killed.
So, he'd ordered the barrage to be called in.
The target was immobilized, had to be desperately low on aura, and disoriented. Calling in the fleet to strike the position was overkill. Going to check that the target had been eliminated was a formality at best.
But now, looking down on the enormous sphere of water covering the area the artillery strike had hit, Clover was faced with the prospect that not only had the target survived their skirmish and the fall down the mountainside, but he'd also survived several minutes of sustained fire from three capital-class airships.
"Is that…" The rest of the Ace-Ops was in no better of a state. They stared down at the strike site in disbelief.
"It is." Harriet answered Elm. "The target's semblance is limited control over water. I think our intelligence branch might need to receive a brief on what the word 'limited' means."
Slowly, Clover reached up to toggle his earpiece.
"General Ironwood, this is Ace Ops Actual. The target… seems to have survived the shelling. Status of target is unknown beyond that, but… you may want to get down here with backup sir. Just to be safe."
There was silence for a long time before Clover received a response.
"Understood. Do you know how the target survived, Actual?"
"His semblance." Clover answered simply. "His control of water is… greater than we anticipated." He knew he was making a mockery of radio protocol, but given what he was looking at, Clover wanted a medal for being able to make a coherent report in the first place.
"I see. I'm on my way. General Order 46 is in effect, Specialist. Keep the target there. My ETA is three minutes."
"Understood." Clover managed to echo, his hand falling from his earpiece.
"Are we… supposed to attack it?" Elm asked.
Clover didn't know. He had no clue. He'd never seen anything like this. How was he supposed to know, he wanted to say. But he was a leader, and his soldiers were looking to him.
"No." he answered with as much confidence as he could muster. "The target has to be inside that, so just… stay here, and watch cautiously. The General has tasked us with keeping the target here while backup arrives. Keep an eye open for any movement. We don't know what the limits of the target's semblance are."
As if triggered by his words, the sphere of water began shifting. At first it collapsed in on itself into a smaller sphere, and then it began to slowly expand.
Clover grabbed the pistol on his belt cautiously, an action that was echoed by the rest of the Ace Ops preparing their weapons or semblances.
And then, in a torrent of water, it began.
Percy knew it was optimistic to hope they'd all be taken out by his first attack, but he'd hoped to get a few of them at least.
To his lament, only one of them were.
Concentrating on the murky bodies of water that made up their bodies in lieu of being able to see them, Percy felt one of them dash away at incredible speeds — the small, electric one he recalled — while two of them were wrapped in a… bubble of some sort, and the last was swept into the large blast of water Percy sent at them. Concentrating on the water holding that one, Percy launched them directly off the mountain and let them go into a drop thousands of feet to the sea below. They'd probably survive, but Percy doubted their ability to rejoin the fight.
Percy gave the rest no respite, focusing first on the two which had escaped into a bubble. It might be impervious to physical force, but, well, there was no harm in trying.
They were slammed into the ground with the force of thousands of gallons slamming into them, then lifted up, and slammed back down again.
Noting his supply of surface water was nearing its end, Percy let it carry him to the top floor as the bulk of it continued to slam the two in the protective bubble. At the very least he'd be giving them a hefty concussion.
The fast one, now on the other side of the plaza, began charging directly at him. Unfortunately for her, Percy didn't need to stop his assault on her teammates to respond. Extending an arm in her direction, a pillar of water rocketed from the main body to intercept the charging figure. She attempted to dodge, but water was nothing if not flexible. It curled and bent until it had encircled her, and then collapsed on its prey.
Percy knew, very quickly, that that had been a mistake.
His muscles tensed and constricted as electricity raced through the water, conducted by the bevy of metals, minerals, and other impurities in the groundwater. While he was no Jason or Thalia Percy was a son of the stormbringer and so fairly resistant to electric charges himself, which only meant that instead of coming to a quick end by cardiac arrest, he was left frozen in uncomfortable pain.
For a few long seconds Percy didn't let up on the runner, figuring there had to be an end to the electricity eventually. But after long enough that he began to worry about semi-permanent damage and the electric shock hadn't so much as faltered, Percy finally cut his losses and let the water under his control fall onto the cobbled pavilion.
Taking only a second to regain control of his muscles, Percy dashed towards his enemy with a single goal in mind.
She took a bit longer to recover her breath, but before Percy could reach her she was heaving, but recovered. Lifting her fists, she bolted straight for him. Concentrating the water in the waterlogged grass and mud to form a wave barely larger than he was, Percy sent it head on to intercept her and charged in directly behind it.
She crashed straight through the small wave with little trouble, but the wave didn't need to knock her down or send her floating away. All it needed to do was conceal her vision.
Percy waited on its other side, Riptide in full swing before she had fully come out the other side. The wave stopped in place behind her, and Riptide's blade impacted her head on.
The small woman cried out — in surprise or pain, Percy wasn't sure — as her aura flickered and she was sent careening backwards, straight into the same wall of water she'd just crashed through. This time, she didn't have the momentum to break through it.
Soaking wet, out of breath, cornered, and left with no other options, the specialist dashed to the side in an attempt to put distance between them.
While Percy wasn't quite her speed he dashed to intercept her path, reaching a tendril of water to envelop her feet, bounding several feet, and slashing Riptide as far as it could reach.
Percy felt the solid impact, heard the shattering of aura, and saw the soldier tumble to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.
Once more, Anaklusmos was tinted crimson.
"Harriet!" a distraught voice across the pavilion cried out, calling Percy's attention to the remaining two, who were now bereft of their protective barrier. The tall bald one was still rubbing his head, but the one that had cried out — the woman with the hammer — began a slow, disoriented charge directly towards him.
Percy was done playing around. There wasn't a reason to let her get closer.
Water all across the ground coalesced directly on the charging woman, and within seconds she'd been engulfed by it. More water only joined it with each second that passed, condensing from the air, pulled from the ground, ripped out of trees, grass, and even the plumbing below.
The tall bald one who could manipulate the weird yellow energy behind her reached out, to do what Percy never figured out because before the yellow energy so much as appeared a torrent of water slammed him in the back of the head and sent him to the ground.
Percy refused to let up. A slow suffocation wasn't enough for this one. He'd weasel out of it if left enough time. Instead a constantly shifting barrage of water continually impacted him. He was hit from behind, and then below, then right, then left, up, behind, right, behind, left, it never stopped. At first he managed to block one or two with small, directional barriers, but after being directly impacted by a few, that had stopped.
Percy didn't stop until well after he was as motionless as his teammates.
He'd been caught off guard before, but not again. No act of compassion, mercy, or arrogance would fell him. Not here.
Relinquishing his control over the water once more, Percy let it flow freely down the mountainside, dispersed enough that it wouldn't be of any serious harm to anyone.
Threat dealt with for now, Percy jogged over to the cliff where he'd been sent over the mountainside and prepared to make his way down it once again. Now that that was out of the way, nothing was stopping him from shifting the battle drastically and permanently in Mistral's favor.
Tensing suddenly, Percy dodged to the right a split second before a bullet ripped through his left arm with a spray of blood, the sound of it being fired only reaching his ears a moment later.
Percy wasted no time manifesting a torrent of water to sweep him away. What now?
Bringing himself to an isolated — for now — part of the floor behind the capitol building, Percy let most of the water recede from around him, but kept it up nearby. Looking skywards, he watched as dozens of Atlesian Knights crashed from the sky.
He cursed. Reinforcements. They'd arrived too late to help their comrades, but they were here all the same. Reaching out with his senses, Percy felt only two more bodies of water. The rest were automatons, then.
Percy let the water consume him and begin healing his arm once more, before willing it to lift him and circle around the capitol. It looked like he had one more obstacle before he could claim victory.
He would let nothing stop him.
Ironwood landed with a grunt, knees bending to catch his fall. Frustratedly, he reloaded his pistol.
A few short feet away an arm reached over the cliffside, and a soaking wet Clover Ebi pulled himself onto flat ground.
"Did you hit him?" he asked the general, hunched over and panting.
"I missed." Ironwood grunted, slamming a fresh magazine up into his pistol. "I hit his arm, but nothing fatal. I was hoping for a bit of luck."
Clover shrugged, "At least you hit him. Considering you were a hundred meters in the air and falling when you took the shot, it could've been a lot worse." he pointed out, an easy smile on his lips until his eyes began wandering over the far side of the large open plaza.
Clover set off quickly, but Ironwood's hand on his shoulder wrenched him to a stop before he could make it more than a foot.
Looking back, away from the bodies spread limp around the level, Clover met Ironwood's gaze.
Ironwood shook his head once. "I've been monitoring the team's readings, Clover. They're gone."
Clover swallowed heavily and looked straight ahead, silent.
"Clover… I need to ask. What happened?"
"Not a clue." he said simply. "I was taken out in the initial blast. Got hit with a torrent of water and was sent careening right over the mountainside."
Ironwood's frown creased. "How'd you make it back?"
Clover moved a single hand to tap the small device on his belt, his primary weapon, Kingfisher. Ironwood could see the hook on its end was missing, and the long spike on its opposite end was heavily damaged. "Got lucky, I guess."
The rest didn't. Ironwood understood.
Hesitating only for a moment, Ironwood spoke. "Their sacrifice won't be in vain." he promised. "All we can do now is avenge them. We will kill Perseus."
Clover's only response was a miniscule nod, but for Ironwood it was good enough. Clover would do his duty.
They would kill Perseus. They would end this, here and now. Despite being the backup plan himself, Ironwood had a backup plan of his own. The contingency measures would make sure today did not end in a defeat for Atlas, so long as Winter and Tortuga succeeded in their task.
But, turning to the third person present, Ironwood doubted the contingency would be necessary.
"This will be your first time in real combat. Are you sure you're prepared for this?"
Ironwood received a determined nod. "I am combat ready."
(I promise I won't tease ya'll for much longer. I ain't draggin this out more than I feel is necessary for the story I promise)
Hey everyone! Sorry for the late chapter - if I haven't slept since the day it was scheduled for, I consider it on time ;) If you wanna know what's going on with chapters, feel free to pop into the discord, I keep in touch there.
I actually really wanted to give ya'll another chapter on the 31st as well without telling you ahead of time as a surprise birthday gift to Ruby (and a thank you to my pat-rons, who have been really understanding considering all the weird schedule junk lately), as I had chapter 54 done by the time I posted chapter 52, but alas I did not find the time for that to be feasible.
Anyway, hope you all enjoyed :)
Next chapter November 10